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"A lot of what we're going to get now," Butters says, "is already in the rear-view mirror." Butters also notes the outsized impact of Apple's earnings on the overall figure for the S&P 500. Strip out Apple, Butters says, and the prediction for the first quarter falls from minus 0.1 percent to minus 1.6 percent. Besides, one quarter of earnings growth hardly means a company is solid. Earnings can be a deceptive measurement, and will rise even when revenue falls if a company slashes jobs and other expenses. Share buybacks and accounting charges can also inflate profits and mask a company's struggles. "You can always juggle earnings," says Stovall. "It's a lot harder to fudge sales." --What's the big picture? Despite all the hubbub about The End of Earnings Growth, analysts are expecting only a short-term decline. Earnings growth is expected to return to 7 percent in the second quarter and 5 percent in the third quarter, according to FactSet. Bigger jumps of 16 percent, 14 percent and 13 percent are predicted for the three quarters after that, through the middle of 2013. Analysts also expect per-share earnings in the S&P to rise to more than $105 in 2012, another record, according to Butters. That reflects investors' belief that Europe will stabilize by the end of the year. Even if it doesn't, the thinking goes, companies will have adjusted to turmoil in Europe as a new normal that they can function under, rather than something that sets off constant fears of another cataclysm. Machinery company Caterpillar said in its last earnings call that the company expects its sales in Europe to continue to rise despite the problems there. "It's been going on a long time and hasn't tanked the place yet," said chief financial officer Edward Rapp. "We don't think it will."
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