I wish I were a Pollyanna. Really I do.

Whenever I pen something that’s constructive on equities or even dare to suggest a crash isn’t in the offing just because the S&P trades on one of the most expensive forward multiples in history, some new reader invariably accuses me of being naively (dangerously) optimistic.

That’s not a straw man, by the way. Most of the criticism I get comes via email not the comments sections. Way back when, I used to publish hate mail, always redacting names and email addresses, of course. I stopped doing that in 2017 because it was childish and unbecoming, but I still get a fair amount.

You’d think that sort of correspondence would emanate mostly from bulls angry about — I don’t know — banner art depicting bears in ominous lighting, or from Donald Trump supporters. But I’d venture to say at least two thirds of it comes from readers who assume that because I write under an anti-hero pseudonym using a sarcastic cadence, I’m a purveyor of crash propaganda. (I don’t know where they would’ve gotten that idea.)

When they discover that’s not the case, they get testy. Some of them, anyway. They wanted to be entertained, not informed. When they push the issue — i.e., when they accuse me of being a Pollyanna — I point them to the Monthly Letters. Knowing those sort of people don’t have the patience for 5,000-word expositions, I give them the CliffsNotes: If you could spend a day chatting with me in person, you’d come away wanting to leap off a tall building, and not just because I’m too much to process. As the long-time readers among you are all too aware, my outlook on life is existentially despairing — utterly hopeless.

I live with the cognitive dissonance of being generally bullish on equities and overtly (pathologically) bearish on life in general. If you set aside the mental anguish, I dare say that juxtaposition serves me well. I’m along for the ride when stocks are melting up, and I’m never disappointed — let alone surprised — when life’s a bitch. If you think about it, I’m just stating facts: Stocks go up over the long run, and over that same long run, we all get sick and die. Hence bullish stocks, bearish life.

Relatedly, my grim view of humanity’s perfectly consistent with a constructive view on equities. Our species is hard-wired for avarice, greed’s good for corporate bottom lines and stocks are just a claim on corporate profits. With all of that in mind, the figures below, from Goldman, give you some additional insight into just how well things went for corporate “citizens” last quarter.

As noted here on Monday morning, nearly eight-in-10 companies have beat on the top-line so far. The chart on the left shows you the share beating by more than a standard decision. At 52%, that share’s well above the 25-year average.

The figure on the right’s important: You might’ve heard someone suggest aggregate margins contracted in Q3. That’s not true. Maybe it will be by the time everyone’s reported, but with 65% or so on the books, you have to strip out Boeing and Meta when you calculate ex-fin/utilities margins. Both of those companies took a one-off charge. (Meta’s tax rate in Q3 was 87%. Plainly, you can’t include that.)

The chart below shows you the share of S&P companies beating on the bottom-line by at least a standard deviation (i.e., it’s the same metric shown above for revenue only for reported profits).

As you can see, the beat rate on that metric’s simply unprecedented if you strip out the COVID reopening boom.

“Earnings results so far this season have come in above consensus estimates at one of the highest rates on record,” Goldman’s David Kostin wrote, editorializing around the charts in his latest.

In the nuance department, it’s worth noting that earnings beats are being rewarded at one of the lowest rates ever: A mere 32bps of excess return for the median stock the day after reporting, as shown on the left, below.

“One explanation for the mediocre reward for beats is that investors view results this quarter as less informative for the forward earnings outlook than in the typical quarter,” Kostin went on.

Speaking of the outlook, guidance is ok so far. Out of nearly 50 companies who gave a Q4 outlook, 43% guided current-quarter EPS ahead of estimates (figure on the right, above). The average is 40% looking back a decade.

So, yeah: Things are going pretty well for blue-chip corporates in America. And no, saying as much doesn’t make you a Pollyanna. What makes us Pollyannas is the blithe disregard we privileged Westerners routinely exhibit for pervasive suffering around the world and our generalized refusal to internalize the terrifying curse that defines our species: We’re conscious of our own mortality.