Wall Street sees flat earnings growth

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street analysts are forecasting flat earnings growth for U.S. companies in the first and second quarter, a survey by Reuters Estimates shows.

Earnings for Standard & Poor's 500 companies are now expected to grow by 0.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, revised downward from a forecast of 0.9 percent a week ago.

Analysts also lowered their earnings growth expectations for the second quarter of 2008 to 0.9 percent from 1.1 percent a week ago.

Reuters Estimates found that for the fourth quarter of 2007, earnings for the S&P 500 fell 20.4 percent, which it said was the worst performance in six years.

It found that the healthcare and technology sectors posted the largest year-over-year earnings gains at 13 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

The weakest earnings performance was in basic materials and financial sectors, which declined by 11 percent and 94 percent, respectively.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke, editing by Jacqueline Wong)