TORONTO (Reuters) - Corporate Canada will likely deliver a wave of dismal earnings reports in coming weeks, but market pros say that could open the door to a stock rally as investors have grown numb to bad news and are ready to pounce on any morsel of optimism.

In an environment where global economies are shedding jobs at an alarming rate, central banks are slashing lending rates and governments are pumping out multibillion-dollar bailout plans, it looks like weak quarterly reports might not be spanked as hard as they once were.

That's welcome news for investors still stinging from the C$816 billion ($663 billion) that the Toronto Stock Exchange lost last year when the market went into a tailspin.

"We may be close to that point where, indeed, the news is still going to be bad. But if it's not as bad, we can take some solace in that regard," said Patricia Croft, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management.

"An awful lot of bad news is already priced in, so at some point, even when bad news is not as bad as expected, stocks could have a bounce."

Overall earnings reports from companies listed on Toronto's blue-chip S&P/TSX 60 index, which includes shares of bank, energy and gold-mining companies, are expected to tumble nearly 24 percent in the quarter, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

With so many of the world's economies stuck in a recession and a seemingly never-ending crisis in the financial industry, it really shouldn't come as any surprise that companies are very likely to post either lower profits or steeper losses.

It's that precise frame of mind that will likely keep the blue-chip index and the Toronto Stock Exchange's broader S&P/TSX composite index from revisiting multi-year lows hit in November.