New York Session - October 21, 2009 5:06 PM

Earnings continued to dominate and remain mixed overall. Despite a stellar 18% bottom-line beat in earnings thus far this reporting season, the sales numbers have actually disappointed and are tracking -0.2% below conservative estimates. This suggests a similar situation to what we saw in 2Q when earnings expansion was driven by cost cutting (especially on the employment front) and not organic growth. Full text »