The unofficial fourth quarter earnings season came to an end yesterday, and the numbers show that it's one we'd all like to forget. From Bloomberg, diluted year-over-year earnings for the S&P 500 are down 36% with 80% of the reports in. As shown in the chart below, analysts were expecting an increase of 30% from Q4 '07 to Q4 '08 back in October.
And on a sector basis, three sectors saw earnings decline more than the index as a whole, while seven came in better than the index. In the chart below we have excluded Financials because its declines were off the charts (-272%). Materials saw the second biggest decline in earnings at -78%, followed by Consumer Discretionary, Energy, and Technology. Three sectors did see year-over-year increases in earnings, however. Utilities were up 6.1%, Consumer Staples were up 9.6%, and Health Care was up 9.9%.
And for those looking ahead to 2009, this is what we have to look forward to:
