Microsoft and Target are among prominent companies that have made headlines recently by announcing they are cutting estimates for future earnings. And these anecdotes aren’t totally isolated.

Some prominent Wall Street bears have noted for months that S&P 500 company earnings revisions have appeared to become increasingly negative.

These headlines are understandably alarming, especially since, as TKer readers know from our headlines, earnings are the most important long-term driver of stock prices.1

However, there’s much more to this story.

“There’s a popular narrative that earnings estimates are beginning to fall apart,” Jonathan Golub, chief U.S. equity strategist at Credit Suisse, wrote on Wednesday. “The facts do not bear this out.“