Jefferies: Positive Earnings Season Will Send S&P 500 Up By 12%

First-quarter earnings season is already upon us and if analysts at Jefferies are to be believed, the earnings performance for this quarter will set the S&P 500 up for the rest of the year. Q1 2017 Letters Earnings Season Approaches Wall Street analysts are predicting 8.6% earnings per share growth this quarter, excluding energy considering the easy year-on-year comparison. If this target is realized, it will be above the 1990 to 2017 CAGR of 6.2%. Including energy, the consensus is for 10% growth far above the long term average. But even excluding energy, growth this quarter is set to be…