More than half of the Fortune 500 companies have declined to issue earnings guidance to investors, as they have effectively thrown up their hands and admitted that their prospects are too uncertain to make decent projections, according to Fortune.

In the third quarter, only 48 percent of companies have resumed giving earnings guidance, leaving investors with little idea as to where a firm's fortunes are headed. The disappearance of earnings guidance began around the second quarter, when 184 out of 285 S&P 500 companies that have historically provided such guidance either withdrew previous forecasts or declined to provide projections for 2020 and 2021, almost entirely due to the chaos of the pandemic. While the number of companies that did so for the third quarter increased from 101 to 138, or by 37 percent, they remain in the minority among those who have basically given up on trying to predict the future.

As one might expect, those that have resumed giving earnings guidance have generally been the ones more optimistic about growth. Fifty-nine of the 138 now giving guidance raised their earnings-per-share forecasts, 41 stayed the same, and only 26 projected lower numbers than they were projecting before.

Fortune noted that this lack of guidance has not dissuaded investors, who continue pouring money into the stock market, sometimes vigorously depending on the daily news. This has left investors flying blind in many cases, with confidence that they'll come out all right rather than crashing into a mountain obscured by the clouds.