(Bloomberg) — Stocks are losing their last line of defense.
Amid a selloff that erased more than two years of gains — about $14 trillion — from global stocks now on the brink of a bear market, at least earnings stood as a potential bright spot.
Those hopes are fading: analyst profit downgrades outnumbered upgrades by the most since 2009 last week, according to monthly data from a Citigroup Inc. index that tracks such changes.
Declines in oil and other commodities, the withdrawal of Federal Reserve support, Europe's fragile recovery and China-slowdown fears are combining to jeopardize one of the few remaining stock catalysts after a global rally of as much as 156 percent since 2009. And profit growth estimates are still too high for this year and 2017, says Bankhaus Lampe's Ralf Zimmermann.
"The momentum in the global economy is slowing down to such an extent that people are seriously talking about recession," said Zimmermann, a strategist at Bankhaus Lampe in Dusseldorf. "This is not just China, it's far more widespread. There are few places to hide. Even defensives will feel the pain."
Investors are running for the door — they pulled about $12 billion from global stock funds last week. And the MSCI All- Country World Index is near its lowest level since August 2013.
Economists' projections for worldwide expansion in 2016 have dropped steadily in the past months to just 3.3 percent, with estimates for China and the U.S. falling since the summer. The biggest bears are getting more bearish: DoubleLine Capital's Jeffrey Gundlach sees global growth slowing to just 1.9 percent in 2016, making it the worst year since the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2009.
This earnings season may not provide much reassurance, say strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Analysts project a 6.7 percent contraction in fourth-quarter profits for Standard & Poor's 500 Index members. For peers in Europe, estimates call for growth of just 2.7 percent for all of 2015, about half the pace predicted four months ago.
There are some pockets of optimism: lower energy prices may encourage consumers to spend more. Europe's recovery has been exceeding expectations. And the Fed has given itself the flexibility to delay further rate hikes. The earnings bar is so low that the scope for positive surprises is great, says ETF Securities' James Butterfill.
"Fundamentals in the U.S. and Europe still look pretty good," said Butterfill, head of research and investment in London. "Markets seem to be overly focused on the poor state of global manufacturing, and losing their view of the consumer.
