If Donald Trump didn't already have investor nerves jangling, then the growing confession season we're seeing ahead of profit reporting season certainly should.
Just a day after construction software group Aconex lost a staggering 45 per cent of its value after a profit downgrade on Monday, IVF group Virtus joined the party, warning of an ugly drop of in IVF cycle volumes in recent months.
Virtus' total cycles were down 7.2 per cent in the first half of the financial year, with cycles in NSW down a staggering 19 per cent. The shares fell by almost 19 per cent shortly after trade opened.
The confession season is now gaining a little momentum.
Brambles was perhaps the highest profile company to downgrade, warning of weakness in its US operations, while Bellamy's much anticipated profit warning continued a run of bad news for its investors.
Serviced office group Servcorp also delivered a profit warning on Monday, taking a leaf out of the Brambles and Aconex playbook by blaming weakness in its US operations.
Also on Tuesday, new Aurizon chief executive Andrew Harding added to the bad news with $321 million worth of writedowns and job losses. It wasn't entirely unexpected given Harding's role as the new broom, but its hardly a sign that all is well at the company.
One of the more interesting downgrades came last Friday from $103 million industrials group Pro-Pac Packaging, which said last week that its half-yearly profit would fall 23 per cent.
While Pro-Pac might be small, it's troubles could suggest concerns in other sectors. For example, Pro-Pac's volumes have been hit by problems around "the sales of vitamins and nutraceuticals into China". That could suggest the likes of Blackmores, which we know has been having struggles into China, might have some more bad news when it reports On February 22.
Pro-Pac also reported weaker demand from its customers in sector such as red meat, beverage and retail markets. We've already heard suggestions that Christmas wasn't exactly a stellar period for our big retailers, and the Pro-Pac warning would seem to confirm a certain level of weakness.
Citi's latest numbers have earning growth for the 2017 financial year full year running at 17.1 per cent, well ahead of the 11 per cent fall we say in 2016.
But the bulk of that growth is coming from the resources sector, where earnings will soar 85 per cent this year; excluding the resources sector, the market is likely to grow earnings by 4.9 per cent.
Happily, the quarterly production reports coming out of the mining sector – including strong numbers from Fortescue Metals Group's on Tuesday – suggest that they remain on track to drive that full-year earnings growth.
Who would have imagined that would have been the case a year ago?
