Chief executives sharply reduce their expectations.
As a group, stock analysts have been slow to reduce their expectations of future corporate profits.
Car sales declined last month, airline travel has dropped and retailers have reduced their expectations of growth for the year.
If other reports confirm the weak reading in yesterday's employment report, analysts are likely to reduce their expectations for profits, and stocks could suffer as a result.
Most groups that plan to hold such an event before the end of the year have reduced their expectations, the report says.
The minutes of the June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, released this week, said most members had reduced their expectations of employment growth.
Even though some brokerage firm strategists reduced their expectations for overall corporate earnings next year, most of the big firms did not lower investment ratings on any individual United States stocks.
If company insiders are able to misuse shareholders' funds at will, would-be investors will reduce their expectations of future cash flows and thus attach lower valuations to stocks.Other allegations are even more serious.
Recently they have reduced their expectations of earnings so far this year from, among others, EMC, a maker of data-storage systems, Sun Microsystems, one of IBM's biggest rivals, and even Microsoft, the world's largest software company.
Dealers who will be at the Armory Show, which is New York's pre-eminent contemporary art sale and which will take place from March 5 to March 8, have drastically reduced their expectations from what they have come to refer to as "2007 and 2008 levels".
