General Electric may be the canary in the credit market’s coal mine. The company’s bonds tanked this week even as an asset sale briefly lifted its shares. That’s a warning shot for all debt investors. U.S. companies owe more money than ever, and the quality of their loans and bonds has deteriorated. Rising interest rates and slowing growth could make this a big problem. The ailing $75 billion conglomerate is an extreme case, but it exemplifies much of what has happened in corporate America and around the world over the past decade. Historically low interest rates fueled a massive borrowing

General Electric’s profligate past is haunting its future. A fresh $6.2 billion post-tax charge relating to reinsurance – a business the company exited over a decade ago – shows the challenge of managing a conglomerate. As Chief Executive John Flannery struggles to reshape the $163 billion outfit, it’s another reason to consider a breakup. In the 1980s and 1990s, legendary boss Jack Welch built GE Capital, the finance unit, into a behemoth that threatened to overwhelm the group’s industrial operations. Jeff Immelt, who took over from Welch and recently handed the torch to Flannery, pruned the financial-services arm aggressively after

Out of 174 S&P 500 companies, 69% reported earnings above expectations for the week of Oct. 24, 2016.

Click here to view the dashboard in detail. Aggregate Estimates and Revisions Third quarter earnings are expected to increase 3.0% from Q3 2015. Excluding the energy sector, the earnings growth estimate improves to 6.7%. Of the 290 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings to date for Q3 2016, 72.8% have reported earnings above analyst expectations. This is above the long-term average of 64% and above the average over the past four quarters of 70%. The Q3 2016 blended revenue growth estimate is 2.5%. Excluding the energy sector, the revenue growth estimate increases to 4.4%. 56% of companies have reported Q3 2016 revenue