During the second quarter of 2021, earnings rose almost 91% year over year, up from the 63% increase that was expected on June 30th. While this pace of earnings growth is clearly not sustainable, the outlook for the third quarter has continued to accelerate, which at the time of writing is 27.9% as compared to 24.2% at June 30th. The recent stream of softer economic data, seasonality and lack of any significant pullback in the market has created some level of investor trepidation and while a correction can never be ruled out, particularly since they are pretty common in secular bull markets, in an environment of strong earnings growth and practically zero interest rates we continue to think the outlook for equities remains positive.