Earnings Backward Looking

Weak earnings are not going to be reason we go into a bear market.  They are a symptom of a weakening economy, but markets can go up when the economy is weakening.   Just look what happened from June to September. 

The bear market will be begin when the Fed and ECB can no longer "beat the number", as in beat the expectations.  Expectations are quite high, because we can't seem to brush off these mini bear raids with such ease. 

The usual textbook relating the economy with the stock market doesn't apply right now.  Usually a weakening economy leads to a weaker stock market which then bottoms right when all the bad economic data hits, as the market looks forward to the boom cycle.  But we've been going up even with weakening data, as if the bust cycle and the boom cycle are occuring simultaneously.  We've never seen such hyperactive action from the big central banks.  They are manipulating the bond market, but can that spillover to meaningful lasting manipulation of the stock market?  If you can answer that question, you have the crystal ball for the next year of stock market action.  I am leaning towards no, they can't.