These stalwarts fail to inspire much confidence

E arnings season — the quarterly financial checkup on corporate America — hits its stride this week. This is when Wall Street finds out which companies are doing great — and which are coming up short.

Four high-profile companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index — Google, Trip Advisor, Time Warner Cable and McDonald’s — have the unfortunate distinction of routinely disappointing investors with their quarterly profits, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ.

Each of these companies has reported earnings that fell short of expectations in each of the past four consecutive quarters.

Investors likely will be less forgiving this time around because expectations for secondquarter earnings are already low. Analysts are calling for adjusted profit to fall more than 4% during the second quarter, which would be the worst showing for profit growth in the S&P 500 since 2009, S&P Capital IQ says.

Of the handful of S&P 500 companies that have consistent- ly failed to live up to analysts’ expectations, the highest-profile example is Google.

The search engine behemoth is scheduled to report its results Thursday. Analysts expect the company to report 10% adjusted profit of $6.69 a share. But expectations have proved too high each of the past five quarters. For instance, profit fell 0.6% short in the March quarter and 3.5% in the December quarter, S&P Capital IQ says. Google has missed quarterly expectations by an average of 2% over the past reporting periods.

McDonald’s, too, hasn’t been giving investors much to love during earnings season. The company — which is currently attempting a turnaround — has missed adjusted quarter earnings estimates by an average of 3.3% over the past four quarters. The company’s adjusted profit has come in short five out of the past five quarters. Investors undoubtedly hope the company ends the curse when it reports quarterly results July 23. Analysts are calling for McDonald’s to earn $1.24 a share, down 11% from a year ago.

Just because these companies have habitually missed earnings forecasts recently doesn’t mean they will again. But in reporting season, if investors get a surprise, they don’t want it to be a bad one.