Companies are in the process of announcing their first quarter earnings. It's worth noting that since the beginning of the current earnings cycle (Q2 2007), the pace of earnings growth has been pretty poor. "This has been the weakest earnings cycle in 55 years," noted LPL Financial's Jeff Kleintop. "Every earnings cycle over the past 55 years has generated about a 7% annualized earnings per share (EPS) growth rate, when measured from peak to peak or from trough to trough. The best multi-year earnings cycle measured from prior peak to the next peak was an annualized 9.1% and the worst 5.6%, with most clustered ... (full story)