S&P 500 Earnings Growth Misleadingly Inflated by Alphabet and Amazon

Financial analysts are touting an impressive 118.5% earnings growth for the S&P 500 this quarter, but closer inspection reveals that two dominant tech stocks - Alphabet (GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN) - are carrying most of the weight.

The so-called 'Magnificent Seven' - a group of large-cap tech companies - initially had an expected earnings growth rate of 30.8%. However, with many of their reports in, that figure has ballooned to nearly four times its original forecast.

But when these two top performers are removed from the equation, the remaining five stocks' growth drops significantly to 43.2%, still a respectable number but not quite as spectacular as the headline suggests.