The U.S. stock market keeps hitting new all-time highs despite the second quarter of 2016 being another quarter with negative earnings growth. While there are still a few more earnings announcements to be released before the quarter is closed out, it looks as if earnings were down approximately 5% from the same quarter a year ago. It is also likely that the final numbers will come in below expectations. This will be the sixth consecutive quarter with declining earnings - not the stuff of which record high stock prices are made.
The last time the S&P 500 experienced double-digit earnings growth was in Q3 2014. Prior to that, there were three down quarters for earnings from Q3 2012 to Q1 2013. The last time there was really impressive earnings growth was in Q3 2011 - almost five years ago - when earnings were up 21%. This was during the final
