By late Monday, the S&P 500 had fallen below 2532 to set a new low for the year before swinging up slightly to end the day. Such a drop would put the S&P 500 within a couple of percentage points of falling into bear territory for the first time since the 2008-09 economic crisis. In 2015, as the S&P 500 fell just under 1% for the full year, earnings were also on the decline. In what analysts then called an “earnings recession,” quarterly S&P 500 earnings fell the final three quarters of 2015, with a worse than 3% year-over-year performance in Q4. First, there’s earnings from a bunch of companies, including Oracle, FedEx, and Nike.

Source: Forbes December 17, 2018 22:07 UTC