MORE BARRON'S

More stuff from Barron's like an answer to one important question:

Why have price earnings multiples around the world skidded?

Answer:

Higher interest rates, inflation fears and last but not least imvho earnings concerns.

According to Byron Wien, now from Pequot, "growth is hard to come by in the U.S., Europe and Japan, and the markets are also being held back by the fact that investors sense that we're in a more uncertain environment caused by an erosion of economic power in the U.S., a migration of scientific innovation to other countries and terrorism. The Iraq war might have made U.S. stocks appear to be riskier than they once seemed and thus made investors unwilling to pay as much for them as they would if peace prevailed."

Wien apparently went out on a limb at the beginning of the year according to barron's by predicting the SP 500 would drop to 1200. Not sure why that is a risky bet as the year started at 1248, a whopping 4% drop to get to the target branch.

My take, prices have come down and will probably come down further due to geopolitical tensions, higher rates, SLOWING EARNINGS GROWTH and the new Fed head.

Last question; how much of the earnings growth is due to the record earnings at the oil/ oil service companies. If the earnings growth of those companies were removed the overall earnings growth of the SP500 would be?