Full record
MisseconomyCorporate earnings rise over the course of 2015.
A scored prediction by Tom Lee, made on .
Scored prediction
Misseconomy“I do think you are going to see earnings rise through the year.”
Corporate earnings rise over the course of 2015.
- Made on
- 2015-02-23
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 3 / 5
- Effect on score
- +0.46
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2015-12-31
S&P 500 earnings rise over the course of 2015 — operationalized as (a) full-year 2015 operating EPS (S&P Dow Jones Indices) exceeding full-year 2014, and (b) Q4 2015 operating EPS exceeding Q1 2015. Both legs required.
Both required legs fail on the same primary series. Leg (a): FY2015 operating EPS $100.45 < FY2014 $113.01 (-11.1%). Leg (b): Q4 2015 $23.06 < Q1 2015 $25.81 (-10.7%). No conflicting credible evidence — FactSet's separate aggregation also shows a CY2015 decline (-0.7%), so while providers disagree on the MAGNITUDE (S&P DJI's operating measure absorbs energy write-downs that FactSet's excludes), they agree on the SIGN, and the criterion only asks for direction. Note the record's claim window is 'over the course of 2015', and the quarterly path (25.81 -> 26.14 -> 25.44 -> 23.06) peaked in Q2 and fell thereafter. Final Q4 2015 S&P DJI data was published around March 2016; resolved_on set to the criterion measurement date.
Sources
Evidence of what happened
Leg (a): S&P Dow Jones Indices S&P 500 operating EPS (via YCharts, source Standard & Poor's) — full-year 2014 = $113.01 (27.32 + 29.34 + 29.60 + 26.75); full-year 2015 = $100.45 (25.81 + 26.14 + 25.44 + 23.06). 2015 did NOT exceed 2014; it fell 11.1%.
Leg (b): same S&P DJI quarterly series — Q1 2015 operating EPS $25.81 versus Q4 2015 operating EPS $23.06. Q4 2015 was 10.7% BELOW Q1 2015, i.e. earnings fell rather than rose over the course of 2015.
FactSet 'S&P 500 2015 Earnings Recap' (2016-01-08): CY2015 earnings declined 0.7% year over year, the first annual decline since CY2009, driven by the stronger dollar and a 30.8% fall in crude; Energy sector earnings -59.0%. Confirms the direction of travel through 2015 on an independent aggregation.
NYU Stern (Damodaran) annual dataset: S&P 500 earnings 116.16 in 2014 falling to 100.48 in 2015 — a third independent series showing a year-over-year decline.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Effect on the score
+0.46- How sure they sounded
- 65%
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 3 / 5
This page shows the scored prediction as published; the site doesn't recompute or adjust the score.
Where this came from
Corporate earnings rise over the course of 2015.- Methodology version
- v1.0.0
- Last computed
- August 5, 2026
- Made on
- 2015-02-23
How this profile was built
Scored by independent judges
Predictions gathered and sourced
Independently verified against sources