I subscribe to the NYT Technology RSS feed. This morning’s feed had three stories grouped very close together:

Amazon’s Profit Fell 43% in Its 4th Quarter
Amazon reported lower than expected revenue along with much higher expenses, but blamed the profit drop on a reduced tax benefit.

Profit Drops 31% at Top Maker of Video Games
Electronic Arts, America’s largest video game publisher, reported significantly lower profit on Thursday and missed already downgraded expectations.

Net Income Declines 69% in Fourth Quarter at Comcast
The nation’s largest cable company sa
id profits slid because investment losses and a higher tax rate offset gains in its core businesses.

Interesting also that two of the three companies here attribute their profit problem to taxes.

I imagine stocks will take another pummeling today on this news. Interest rates are going up. Gas prices aren’t coming down. Worker productivity is slowing.

2006 is not looking good so far.