Third-quarter earnings season kicked off this week, with investors hoping for signs that the record-highs in major indexes are justified by the level of activity in corporate America. The good news is there may be more wiggle room on this score than investors realize. While trading in 2017 has largely been the story of changing market leadership—first bank stocks, then technology names—economic improvement is wider than is currently appreciated, which could help limit the pain in the event that a high-profile stock disappoints with its results. “A small number of very large stocks, including the so-called FANG stocks, have contributed a large share of the overall cap-weighted return of the S&P 500 SPX, +0.18% in 2017,” Morgan Stanley wrote, referring to a quartet of large-capitalization technology and consumer discretionary stocks.via