The upcoming U.S. earnings season is likely to be better than expected for major U.S. corporates, investor and strategist Dennis Gartman told CNBC Tuesday.

“Are we going to see 5-10 percent growth in earnings by almost all of the S&P 500 ? Probably,” Gartman, the author of The Gartman Letter, said.

He believes that current predictions of up to 2 percent growth in numbers are “probably a bit on the downside.” Earnings for the last quarter of 2011 surprised investors by being better than expected, with 63 percent of S&P 500 companies beating earnings estimates.

Earnings in the index surged by 19 percent in the first quarter of 2011.

“We are not going to replicate 19 percent for a long time,” Gartman said. He added that aluminium company Alcoa’s numbers, expected later Tuesday, are “probably” going to be horrible.

Weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs figures on Friday sent stock markets down Monday, in one of the year’s lowest-volume trading days to date.

“Everybody got this one wrong,” Gartman said, admitting he missed the number by a “large amount.”

He added that the response was an “over-reaction” because of the long Easter weekend.

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