Well folks, today's not going to be the day we give you the final report card for fourth quarter's earnings season. We only have numbers for about 90% of the S&P 500's constituents, and that last 10% is an important 10%. So, though the number is unlikely to move much from where it is now, this isn't going to be our final look. SCN Elite Opportunity Free Alerts Get premium select stock picks via email and mobile text alerts from our SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity Team. It's 100% FREE! No strings attached and no credit card required. Click here to sign-up today! Still, we'll give you the number we've got for the time being, as we want to show you the history and outlook for the market's earnings growth now that we have 2016's projections in-hand. No fanfare is needed here. We'll just show you the data for the S&P 500's per-share earnings figures along with the corresponding yoy growth rate for each quarter's total. Just so there's no confusion, everything through Q3 of last year is an actual figure, and everything from Q1 on of this year is an estimate. The Q4-2014 number is 90% actual and 10% estimate. Wow. Almost needless to say, the bulk of this year isn't looking too rosy. Yes, earnings growth should pick up again beginning in the fourth quarter, but don't forget the context for the quarter - it's being compared to the fourth quarter of 2014, during which overall earnings declined 6%. Last quarter's income lull makes Q4-2015's expected growth look healthier than it really is. Regardless, the income projections through the third quarter of this year look downright pathetic, and are a far cry from the double-digit growth rates being batted around for 2015 just a few months ago. Not to toot my own horn (too much), but I told you so. I actually sounded the alarm several times within the past few weeks, suggesting earnings-growth expectations for this year were way too high. For instance, back on January 8th yours truly explained regarding an overzealous valuation at the time: "Even if we top estimates with, say a 9% growth rate [for all of 2014], investors should soon realize the overall growth rate is starting to slow. The bulls will be quick to counter with a projected upturn in earnings for this year. According to Standard & Poor's data, the S&P 500's bottom line should expand by 12.2% in 2015, after falling to only 8.8% growth in 2014. My only question for the folks making that argument is, where's that extra 3.4% worth of growth going to come from? There are some reasonable answers worth debating, not the least of which is annualized Q3 GDP growth of 5.0%. I'd even go as far to say the employment trend has been persistently decent long enough to really get consumers back in a spending mood [though we'll have a better idea about this after tomorrow's employment update from December]. I'll also remind you how the capacity utilization and industrial production trends - already in decent - picked up the pace again in November. Still though, 12.2% growth is a big expectation for the latter stages of an economic expansion and bull market. With that as the backdrop, I'm mostly on the lookout for downward revisions of 2015's numbers." Sure enough, they were revised... downward. The pros had previously been looking for 12.2% earnings growth this year, on average. Now the overall expectation is 5.1% growth. Ouch. But 2016's average earnings-growth expectation of 15.4% for 2016 justifies the trailing P/E of 18.8 (yes, 18.8) and a forward-looking (2016, not 2015) of 15.5? Actually, the math makes enough sense - though frothy, a forward-looking earnings multiple of 15.5 is palatable given that 15.4% growth rate. The problem is reality.... the bullish chatter being tossed around about 2016 now is the same kind of bullish chatter being tossed around about 2015 a year ago, and clearly 2015 isn't going to even come close to living up to its original expectations. Earnings outlooks are almost always whittled down as time moves along. I've said it before and I'll say it to you again - this isn't a call for a bear market. I think a true bear market and/or recession are still a ways off. An environment of tepid earnings growth should change the way you invest though; some stocks can survive a tepid environment while others struggle with mediocre results. This is why we've been ramping up our focus on sectors and styles lately. We still contend it's the most plausible way of getting the most out of the market when the overall market isn't giving out much. Another Dose of Real Estate Data The real estate data drum continues to beat, with today's report of new home sales from the Census Bureau. Last month, the annualized pace of new homes sales edged down just a bit, from 482,000 to 481,000. This mirrors the drop in the pace of existing home sales we heard on Monday, from 5.07 million to 4.82 million. More important, the release of the data calls for an update of our real estate chart. Though off a little bit for January, I still see a broad (albeit modest) uptrend for new home sales. I also still see a broad uptrend for most of the other real estate data points. The fourth and final real estate data nugget for the week is due tomorrow... the FHFA Housing Price Index. As our chart shows, it's been in an uptrend, and I'm guessing we'll see another step forward when we get December's FHFA data on Thursday. Now, about today's market action... Red Flags Before we say anything about today let me first make it clear that none of what you're about to read should really alarm you. Pullbacks happen from time to time. Some are big, some are small, and many end up being meaningless when all is said and done. There's a good chance any dip we see develop from here could end up in the "meaningless" category. We'll see. Anyway, yeah, there were some clues we saw today suggestive of a pivot for the market. Namely, we saw doji bars (where the open and close are the same level) from the S&P 500 and the VIX, and we also saw doji bars for the NASDAQ and the VXN. Here's the S&P 500's chart with the VIX... ... and here's the NASDAQ Composite with the VXN. The doji is a significant clue because they tend to materialize when the buyers and sellers finally find an equilibrium... which is a transitory condition. In this it would indicate a transition from a buying mood to a selling mood. Of course, you could also just look at the NASDAQ and sense the momentum was slowing down. You'll also recall the Arms Index said a pullback was overdue. Don't read too much into the possibility of a dip. After the big rally we've seen over the past three weeks, stocks deserve a break. There's a chance this could all end rather quietly without snapping the bigger-picture uptrend. It largely depends on what happens when each index's key moving average lines or previous resistance lines are tested. For the NASDAQ the line in the sand is 4811. For the S&P 500 it's 2074. We don't have time or room to talk about it today, but you can see why those levels are important with just a quick look at our charts above. By the way, if you like free stuff, you'll love this.