The strong dollar appears to be wreaking more havoc on companies’ outlooks than the bad weather did last year. The pace of first-quarter profit warnings from S&P 500 companies is running slightly ahead of the pace of set at the same time a year ago, and well ahead of the five-year average, according to data provided by FactSet senior earnings analyst John Butters. Ahead of the start of earnings reporting season, which unofficially kicks off when Alcoa Inc. AA, -1.24% reports results on April 8, about 84% of the companies that have provided first-quarter outlooks gave negative outlooks. That’s above the 81% that ... (full story)