by David Stockman
David Stockman’s Contra Corner
In a nearby post Jeff Snider makes a clean kill of the sell side hockey stick. Just 22 months ago (June 2014), Wall Street projected GAAP earnings of $144.60 per share for the S&P 500 in 2015.
Needless to say, that was off by a country mile. In fact, it was too high by 67%, but the instructive tale lies in the process of getting there.
Since 2013 actual results and 10K filings were long done by June 2014, you have to say that the street was virtually wallowing in hopium. To wit, the above 2015 estimates embodied a two-year gain of 45% from the actual figure of $100.20 per share for 2013.