How the Economy Will Impact Corporate America

How the Economy Will Impact Corporate America

By George Leong for Investment Contrarians

There has been so much focus on the fiscal cliff that I feel traders are ignoring the problems of slowing growth in corporate America.

The fourth-quarter earnings season begins tomorrow with Alcoa Inc. (NYSE/AA), the first DOW stock to report in this earnings season. Alcoa is one of the world’s top aluminum makers; the stock is also a good indicator for the global economy, as aluminum is used in many industrial applications, including aircraft, automobile, commercial transportation, packaging, building and construction, oil and gas, defense, consumer electronics, and industrial applications.

In the third-quarter earnings season, Alcoa beat on Thomson Financial consensus earnings, but its revenues are an issue, which will likely be the situation with many U.S. companies. For Alcoa, revenues are estimated to fall 6.3% in the fourth-quarter earnings season, followed by a 1.3% rise in the 2013 first-quarter earnings season, according to Thomson Financial.

For the fourth-quarter earnings season, the overall revenue growth is estimated to be three percent, according to FactSet (Source: “Earnings Insight,” FactSet, December 14, 2012, last accessed January 4, 2013.) This is simply not what you would expect if the economy was healthy. And while there is some hope and optimism for the fourth-quarter earnings season, I expect disappointment.

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