Records were made to be broken. Barring a big surprise, the earnings generated by S&P 500 companies increased by more than 10 per cent in the last quarter of last year. That would be the 14th consecutive quarter of such growth, beating the previous postwar record of 13 consecutive quarters. Should this record carry an asterisk?

With 440 S&P companies now having reported, Thomson Financial puts the average growth rate at 11.2 per cent. So the streak will almost certainly continue.