That's day five of the rally, but even though the advance was solid (and ended the day stronger than it started it), wise traders will still be skeptical here. We can tell you exactly why in a moment, but first we want to go ahead and deliver the Q1 earnings update we promised last week. Q1 Earnings Scoreboard The last time we looked at the earnings scoreboard back on 16th, we only had numbers from about 10% of the S&P 500's constituents. That wasn't enough to call it a good sample. Now we've got enough. With the "as of the 17th" numbers, 27% of the S&P 500's stocks have reported, and we can start drawing some conclusions and painting some pictures. First and foremost, the S&P 500 is on pace to post per-share income of $27.50 for the first quarter . That's just a tad under the estimate of $27.60 we were working with as of the end of calendar Q1. Not bad, especially considering Google (GOOG), IBM (IBM), and Bank of America (BAC) all missed estimates for the first quarter. On the flipside, the pros were already looking for feeble earnings growth of 7.1%. Now we didn't even do that well. If we remain on the path we're on, we may end up only earning $27.20 or so for the first quarter, which would translate into growth of only 5.5%. Let's hope we got the nastiest of surprises out of the way already. That being said, I believe the real story here isn't the overall earnings picture, but the sector breakdown. Some sectors have doled out a lot of surprises so far, while others have fallen short more than a few times. While we should never assume anything, I can't help but wonder if the sector-level beat ratios and miss ratios so far are an omen of what's to come from stocks in the same sector later on in earnings seasons. Here's how we've done to-date, by sector: Yeah, healthcare has done well, while consumer discretionary stocks are noteworthy laggards. Tech has been a big disappointment too. Who woulda thunk it? And growth? After all, while beats and misses may drive the short-term ebb and flow, in the long run, it's earnings growth that dictates a stock's value. As they say, read 'em and weep. Healthcare is once again on top of the world, along with consumer discretionary stocks... the same discretionary stocks that fell short of apparently-unfair expectations. Now, one word of warning about the table above - they're based on a combination of expectations and actual results-to-date. Both the telecom and the utilities sector are showing huge year-over-year earnings growth, yet we've not heard any earnings reports from either sector yet. Those are only forecasted results of 36.7% and 35.0%. Still, even with the few companies we've heard from so far, we've already seen changes in how most sectors are expected to produce for Q1. As for what I think you should "do" with this information, honestly, nothing yet. We're still in the early stages of earnings season, and we want to wait for a little more dust to settle before jumping to any conclusions. I do, however, want to go ahead and get you thinking about it so we can be ready to digest and respond to data when the rest of Q1's earnings season unfurls. I've got a few sector-based dissections I want to perform for you when the time is right, and part of that analysis is going to refer back to the data we presented above. Stock Talk The market may have been up today, but there was a stark lack of real interest from the bulls. It looks more like the bears just didn't want to bother putting up a fight, waiting for the bulls to fully finish the effort before swooping in to knock the market over. Why do I say that? Because the volume behind today's moderate bullish move was downright pathetic; it barely even registers on our chart of the S&P 500 below. I've said it before but I'll say it again now... if this rally is to last, it's going to need more participants, but in order to get more participants, it's going to need to pull back a little to cool itself off before it reaches dangerous overbought levels. The ironic risk in that pullback is, a small dip could spook tentative investors and turn it into a large dip in a hurry. It's all about pacing; is the move (up or down) sustainable in the current environment? I gotta say, I still question how sustainable this rally is here in a lethargic time of year. The uber-low VIX isn't helping either. For the time being let's choose not to make a choice. There's time and room to come to a conclusion as long as the S&P 500 is just bouncing around between 1857 and 1897. Let's take advantage of it. Just be sure to check in every day this week, as something's going to have to give soon. Speaking of giving soon, although it doesn't seem to be the hot button it was a week ago (not that it was a real hot button then), the potential coal rally we mentioned back on the 8th is one step closer to becoming a reality. All I'm really waiting for is the Dow Jones Coal Stock Index to move above a ceiling at 139.0 to say there's enough momentum in place to keep the rally in motion for a while. Today's close? Right beneath there, at 138.9. We're getting close. Speaking of trades, we're still only holding Genesco (GCO) and Astec (ASTE), with not much else on the horizon. There's been no major news from either stock since the last time we checked in, though Astec told us last week that it would be unveiling last quarter's earnings on April 22nd. Here are the details about the call, if you're interested. Frankly, I'm more interested in the chart, which has been rebounding with the broad market since early last week but has done much better than the market has. With today's pop it looks like ASTE is back above its 20-day moving average line (blue), and the rally effort has the volume it needs to keep moving. In other words, it looks like all it took was a kiss of the 50-day moving average line (purple) to rekindle the big rally effort we saw brewing back in February. Sorry we don't have anything new for you to trade, but if the algorithm doesn't give them to us, there's nothing we can do to change that. If you're getting an itchy trading trigger finger though, then I've got a great solution for you. I think we mentioned this to you last week, but if not, the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity locked in gains on QualCOMM (QCOM), Corning (GLW) and Myriad Genetics (MYGN) of roughly 27%, 24%, and 32%, respectively, last week. That's huge, but that's not the exciting part. What's exciting is that the SCN EO cleared those stocks out to make room for some new ideas. Reading between the lines, it looks like John Monroe's got a pick or two in mind already, and may be pulling that trigger within the next few days. If you're in need of a new name to trade, now would be a great time to use your free two-week trial membership to the Elite Opportunity. Monroe continues to knock them out of the park. Here's how to get your trial membership, or cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/?vmpd_ckstr[click_track]=Newsletter&vmpd_ckstr_redirect=/pages/SCNEO/v1/