More firms set to issue bleak data

Only weeks before the reporting season begins, many Chinese publicly traded companies have issued earnings alerts not only of lower profits than earlier projections, but also of worsening expectations for 2009.

To be sure, there are bright spots, like the pharmaceutical sector, in the corporate gloom. But companies in most other sectors are sounding the alarm.

Among the more than 500 listed companies that had posted their preliminary earnings reports, 40 percent are projecting profit declines or losses in 2008. Around this time last year, only 45 companies delivered such bad news.