With the stock market on a tear, closing up five straight weeks in a row, many dividend bloggers have begun to echo the sentiment about finding relative bargains again.

One of the ways that corporations return earnings to shareholders is via stock buybacks. These have been occurring at a very high rate in 2014.

December E-mini S&Ps (ESZ14 -0.04%) this morning are down -0.07%, although European stocks are up +0.89% after German investor confidence rose more than expected to a 4-month high.

QE is not over. Instead, in the United States, the process has simply morphed from being predominantly executed by the Federal Reserve (Fed) to being executed by its major private bank members.

The earnings news was good, but investors seem unimpressed.

It is earnings reporting season, and today’s reports feature the banks.