S&P 500 is starting to run lowon buyers

Going by early returns, this earnings season is shaping up as a historical one relative to forecasts.

Its impact on the market has been less memorable.

Among S&P 500 companies that have disclosed results, 86 percent beat analyst estimates, on pace for the best showing since Bloomberg began tracking the data in 1993.

That’s doing little to excite the bulls: shares of reporting companies actually are down about 2 percent the next day. The result was a relatively flat week in which the S&P 500 stalled about 75 points from a record.

While a lot of things could explain the limp outcome, one possibility stands out: there aren’t many people left to buy.

So enthusiastically have fund managers piled into equities as they rallied this year that measures of bullish exposure are bordering on unprecedented heights.

“Part of it is the uncertainty and part of it is just expectations are already priced in,” said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera Financial Group. “The only thing that would push earnings even higher is a V-shaped recovery. We do believe we’re in a U-shaped economy where this virus overhang, the uncertainty in Washington, lack of stimulus is going to keep the economy slower for a while.”

Stocks endured a bumpy ride but managed to post their third straight weekly gain, with the S&P 500 climbing 0.2 percent.

It got within 1.3 percent of its Sept. 2 record after a big Monday rally, but ended theweek off it by 2.7 percent.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index added 1.1 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed and the Russell 2000 Index slipped.

The biggest banks largely delivered profits that beat analyst estimates.

However, most of them saw sharp drops in their shares over the five days as fears persisted that the worst may not be over for loan defaults.

Wells Fargo & Co. sank almost 10 percent, while Bank of America Co. and Citigroup Inc. slid at least 3.8 percent.

Goldman Sachs Group

Inc. dropped 0.6 percent, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. eked out a gain.

In amarket where valuations have expanded to levels not seen since the dotcom era, the bar for earnings beats pushing stocks higher may be too high for companies to clear.

Investors also have grappled with marketwide issues from the looming presidential election to the prospects for a government spending package and rising virus cases.