Alcoa's (AA) Earnings Confirm Ongoing Recession

There is no way to spin the dreadful results coming in the third quarter for Alcoa (NYSE:AA), as even after analysts continued to lower their expectations for the quarter, Alcoa still missed by wide margin.

Earnings came in at $172 million, or 15 cents a share, 7 cents below the 22 cents a share analysts surveyed by FactSet were looking for. However, it was an improvement over the $61 million, or 6 cents a share generated in the same quarter last year.

The narrative is the low price of aluminum, which dropped 12 percent for the quarter, confirming the recession continues on, in spite of the official storyline that we've been in a recovery.

In reality, analysts had slashed their projections for the quarter by close to 25 percent, making the performance of Alcoa even worse than the numbers show.

To underscore the weak margins, revenue actually increased for the quarter to $6.42 billion, surpassing expectations of $6.24 billion.

There is no doubt other sectors will get hammered as the anemic earnings season unfolds.

Gold should start to rebound, as well as silver. Silver could take another hit, as when it goes down it's based upon industrial demand, and when it goes up, it's usually because of its demand as a precious metal, similar to gold. That's why silver is more volatile than its stronger cousin.

The share price of Alcoa has slumped by about 40 percent in the third quarter, closing at $10.30, up $0.21, or 2.08 percent. The company was getting crushed in after hours trading, down to $9.82, losing $0.50, or 4.85 percent.