Fears of a looming United States recession have subsided, with investors taking comfort that the Federal Reserve will continue to support economic growth.
But warning signs keep flashing about the shaky fundamentals of the economy and therefore the stock market. The latest alarm bell is that Wall Street analysts are slicing their forecasts for how much big companies will earn in the months ahead.
Halfway through the first quarter of the year, analysts now expect profits of companies in the S&P 500 to decline by 1.7 percent from the same period last year, according to data from John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet.
