Good Friday evening to all of you here on r/stocks! I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and are ready for the new trading week ahead. 🙂
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning July 18th, 2022.
Investors are likely to switch their focus to earnings season, after the market’s wild ride on rising and falling expectations for Federal Reserve rate hikes.
Stocks were volatile in the past week. The three major indexes posted sharp gains Friday, after worries the Fed would raise rates by a full point this month faded. Still, stocks notched weekly losses, with the S&P 500 was down nearly a percent at 3,863.16.
A surprise 9.1% year-over-year jump in June consumer inflation Wednesday drove speculation the Fed would be willing to battle rising prices by going beyond the three-quarter point hike, anticipated on July 27.
But by Friday, comments from Fed officials, a surprise 1% gain in June retail sales, and some better data on consumer inflation expectations reversed those expectations in the futures market.
“It really was a great study in mob psychology. We went into the week with a 92% chance it was a 75 basis point hike, and we exited Wednesday with an 82% chance it was going to be 100 basis points,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities. A hundred basis points is equal to one percentage point.
By Friday, strategists said there was just about a 20% chance for a 100 basis point hike priced into the market.
In the coming week, earnings news could set the tone as a diverse group of companies report. Big banks continue with reports Monday, with releases from Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. Johnson & Johnson, Netflix and Lockheed Martin post results on Tuesday. Tesla and United Airlines issue their quarterly figures Wednesday. AT&T, Union Pacific and Travelers are among those reporting Thursday. American Express and Verizon both release earnings Friday.
Besides earnings, there are a few key data releases, mostly around housing. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index will post on Monday. Housing starts are out Tuesday, and existing home sales are due Wednesday. On Thursday, there is the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey. Finally, both manufacturing and services PMI are released on Friday.
“Every data point matters and also what companies are saying. Next week… it’s a much broader picture in terms of earnings and the economy,” said Quincy Krosby, chief equity strategist at LPL Financial. “If there are negative revisions and mounting concerns from the guidance, I think then you are going to see questions as to how the Fed is going to interpret that…The other point is whether or not the market can build off today’s rally.”
Earnings expectations
Strategists have been expecting the second-quarter earnings season to contain disappointments and downward revisions, as companies deal with inflation, supply chain issues, staff shortages — and now a slower economy.
“We can shift to earnings and that will take up all the oxygen in the room. There’s a possibility this is where the market could make some traction,” said Hogan. “We haven’t really heard from anybody but big banks. There’s a chance that expectations are so low, and the narrative around guidance is that it’s going to have to come down. If it doesn’t, there’s a chance we’ll see a positive reaction to that.”
Earnings for the S&P 500 companies are expected to gain 5.6%, based on actual reports and estimates, according to I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv. As of Friday morning, 35 S&P companies had reported, and 80% of those reported earnings above forecasts, Refinitiv found.
Hogan noted that by the end of earnings season, companies usually beat at a 65% pace. “It’s just a function of keeping your guidance. The same guidance is going to be good enough,” he said. “We saw that with PepsiCo first out of the gate, leaving the forward guidance the same, and the stock was applauded for that. That could be the norm, rather than the exception.”
Krosby said investors will also be watching housing data, after the rapid jump in mortgage rates.
“It is a litany of real estate focus, which is important because we want to see how the housing market is holding up,” she said. “It’s a focus for the Fed to slow down the housing market. We’ll see how that unfolds.”
This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:
S&P Sectors for this past week:
Major Indices for this past week:
Major Futures Markets as of Friday’s close:
Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:
Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday’s close:
S&P Sectors for the Past Week:
Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday’s close:
Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday’s close:
Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for this week:
(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)
(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.)
Here are the upcoming IPO’s for this week:
Friday’s Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:
S&P 500 Performance Before, During and After Recessions
A recession has widely been defined by many economists as two consecutive quarters of decline in GDP. Whether or not you are a glass half-full or half-empty person, Q1 U.S. GDP was negative which does satisfy half of that definition. More recently the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow model’s estimate for Q2 U.S GDP is also negative. In an effort to gain a better understanding of the market’s performance before, during and after recessions we have compiled the following table.
Dates for U.S recessions were sourced from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Since 1945, there have been 13 U.S. recessions. The most recent and shortest was the result of Covid-19 and began in February 2020 and ended two months later in April. The longest recession post WWII was caused by financial crisis in 2008-2009 and lasted 18 months. The average duration of a recession has been 10.2 months.
Historically, in the 1-year period prior to the start of the recession, S&P 500 has been positive 53.8% of the time with an average gain of 4.12%. In the table above, the year before the recession began is calculated using monthly closes. For example the 1-year prior to the Covid-19 recession was calculated using the close from January 2019 through the close of January 2020. During recessions S&P 500 historically advanced 46.2% of the time but with an average loss of 1.22%. Once the recession ended S&P 500 generally tended to soar 14.45% on average higher over the next year with gains occurring 84.6% of the time.
Short Interest Keeps Rising
Over the past few days, equities, including the most heavily shorted stocks, have reversed a good amount of the gains seen since the mid-June lows. A basket of the 100 most heavily shorted stocks in the Russell 3,000 is currently little changed versus its levels at the start of 2020 compared to a roughly 16% gain for the Russell 3000. Whereas heavily shorted stocks saw massive outperformance versus the broader market in the second half of 2020 and early 2021, that outperformance has unwound since last fall. More recently over the past two months, though, highly shorted stocks and the Russell 3000 have been performing more or less in line with each other as the relative strength line has trended sideways and is near similar levels to the COVID Crash.
The most recent short interest data as of the end of June was also updated in the past 24 hours. For the whole of the Russell 3000, the average reading on short interest as a percentage of float currently stands at 6.24%. That is up 20 basis points since the prior update for mid-June and a full percentage point higher versus the start of the year.
Across nearly all industry groups, there have been major shifts in short interest levels since the start of the year. While most have made considerable moves higher, there are others that have actually fallen significantly like Food & Staples Retail and Telecommunication Services. Given the big increases this year, Retail continues to have the highest average reading on short interest followed by the Pharmaceuticals, Biotech &Life Sciences, and the automobile industries. Although their levels of short interest are not as elevated, Software & Services and Energy stocks saw the largest increases from the last report while only the Media & Entertainment industry and Food & Staples Retailing stocks saw declines in average short interest between the two most recent reports. That being said, none of those sequential moves were particularly large with the biggest absolute move being the 0.45 percentage point increase in Software & Services.
Switching over to the individual stocks with the highest levels of short interest, Dillard’s (DDS) currently tops the list with a little more than half of its shares sold short. That reading is only half of a percentage point higher versus mid-June but has nearly doubled since the start of the year. Although it continues to sit near the top of the list, Redbox Entertainment (RDBX), has perhaps seen the most notable shift in levels of short interest versus the last bi-weekly report. Throughout the year, the recent has seen large swings in its reported short interest levels.
NASDAQ Midyear Rally Fizzles and Bears Not Expected to Hibernate Until Late Q3/Early Q4
On the heels of one of the roughest first half starts in decades; the market had found some footing during the seasonally bullish start to the second half of the year here in the beginning of July. Even during historically meager midterm years, the first half of July has generated respectable gains. However much like the first half of the year, typical first half of July strength appears to have come to an end. After briefly entering positive territory, NASDAQ’s midyear rally is now a bust down 2.3% at today’s close with only two days remaining in the 12-day span.
As you can see in the updated S&P 500 seasonal pattern chart, through today’s close above, S&P 500 has rolled over and appears to be tracking the sideways trading action in in “All Midterm Years” and “Democratic President Midterm” years. We still believe this bear market will put in a typical midterm-election-year bottom sometime later this year. The bottom is most likely to be in the August-October timeframe just ahead of the midterm elections and possibly around the time when the Fed begins to signal that it may slow or even pause its rate hike cycle.
Bulls Back Above 25%
In spite of the S&P 500’s consistent declines in the past week as it failed to take out its late June highs, investor sentiment has turned around (relatively speaking) with this week’s reading from the AAII showing 26.9% of respondents reporting as bullish for the first time since early June. The 7.5 percentage point increase in the percentage of bullish responses this week was a large week-over-week increase by historical standards, although there have been multiple even bigger larger weekly increases over the past few months.
With the increase in bullish sentiment, over a quarter of respondents reported as bullish for the first time in five weeks. Such extended streaks with as depressed readings have been few and far between with the last five-week streak occurring all the way back in the summer of 1993. Overall, there have now only been six streaks in which bullish sentiment remained below 25% for at least 5 consecutive weeks. The longest of these was in December 1990 when it went on for 9 weeks in a row. Albeit a small sample size, historically the end of these streaks have not been raging buy signals for the S&P 500 in the short term with inline performance versus all periods and somewhat weak returns one month out. However, three, six, and twelve months later the S&P 500 has been higher almost every time with slightly stronger than normal performance (six months out from the March 1990 occurrence was the only decline).
The increase in bullish sentiment was met by bears falling back below 50% to 46.5%. Mirroring bullish sentiment, that made for the lowest reading since the first week of June.
As a result of those moves, the bull-bear spread remains firmly in favor of bears. With the percentage of bearish responses outnumbering bulls by 19.6 points, for the 15th week in a row the bull-bear spread remains negative. That steak has grown to be the third largest on record behind a 22-week streak ending in late 1990 and a 34-week streak ending in October 2020.
Neutral sentiment has managed to avoid major shifts in sentiment in recent weeks and this week was no exception. This reading fell modestly from 27.8% to 26.6%. That is well within the range of the past couple of years’ readings and is only the lowest since three weeks ago.
More Burning on Hot Inflation
For most of the session yesterday, the S&P 500 was having trouble choosing a direction, but come the final hours of trading with a CPI release looming, the index took a decisive turn lower. Given rampant hot inflation over the past couple of years and its implications for changes to monetary policy, that sort of late day selling ahead of CPI prints has been the norm as shown below. On average for the past two years, the day before CPI releases has typically seen the S&P 500 trade higher for most of the session before turning lower and erasing its gains in the afternoon; just as we saw yesterday.
With another hotter than expected print this morning for both headline and core measures of inflation, yesterday’s late day sellers seem to have been on the right side of the trade as the S&P 500 has fallen further and is on pace for the sixth drop on a CPI print in a row. Taking a look at intraday price action of the S&P 500 on CPI release days, historically there has been a downward bias with all releases since 2000 averaging a drop of a few basis points by the close. Over the past two years it has been far worse with an average decline of 28 bps. Most of that drop has actually occurred after a bout of midday selling.
Using data from our Economic Indicator Database, filtering out for only times in which CPI has come in above expectations (on a month over month basis), that same pattern is apparent. The S&P 500 tends to trade in the red for most of the morning but the worst declines occur in the early afternoon before some stabilizing into the close.
In response to today’s hotter than anticipated release, the S&P 500 gapped down 1.2% which ranks as the fourth worst gap down for the index on a CPI day since at least 2000. Going back over the past two decades, there have only been a total of seven gaps down of 1% or more on a CPI day. Including today, four of those releases have occurred this year: February (-1.2%), March (-1%), June (-1.64%), and today (-1.23%). Taking a look at the intraday pattern of the S&P 500 across those 1% or larger gaps, the index has tended to continue to fall throughout the session with the lows of the day tending to occur around 2:30 EST with modest sideways action into the close from there.
This Isn’t Normal
With inflation running out of control and markets furiously attempting to re-price Federal Reserve interest rate policy, we’re seeing some truly wild moves in the fixed income markets. This week, the big moves have come at the short-end of the Treasury yield curve as three-month Treasury yields have surged by 35 basis points this week alone. While the 2y10y US Treasury yield curve has been inverted for seven trading days now, the 3m10y curve, which is the FOMC’s preferred measure of the yield curve, has remained positively sloped, but the rate of flattening has really picked up in recent days and since early May has gone from around 225 bps to under 75 bps today.
As mentioned above, the bulk of the flattening in the 3m10y curve has occurred more recently. The chart below shows the 20-day rate of change in the 3m10y US Treasury yield curve since 1962. The red line indicates the threshold for 100 bps of flattening in a four-week span which is where we are at now. Prior to the current period, there wasn’t a similar flattening of the 3m10y curve in a four-week span since the Financial Crisis. In August 2011, the rate of flattening got close to 100 bps in a four-week span but came up just shy. In other words, these types of moves in the yield curve don’t happen very often.
How often are they? The chart below shows the distribution of four-week changes in the 3m10y yield curve over time grouped into 20 bps increments. Including the last few days, where we are at in the current period (-100 to -120 bps of flattening in a four-week span) has only occurred on 77 trading days, and there have only been a total of 223 trading days where the yield curve flattened by 100 bps or more in a four-week period. On a percentage basis, that works out to less than 1.5% of all trading days. When it comes to markets, it seems as though there’s always something unique happening out there, and these days, you don’t see what’s happening at the short end of the Treasury curve very often.
Another Curve Inverts
As of today, the percentage of inverted points on the yield curve reached the YTD highs seen in mid-June of 17.9%. This comes as the 10-year and 1-year invert, as well as the 5-year and 2-year. The inversion of points on the yield curve (particularly 2s&10s) tends to be cited as a leading recession indicator, due to the fact that higher near-term yields imply a higher risk in the near-term rather than the long-term, the inverse of what is typically true. The graph below shows the rolling percentage of inverted points on the curve over the last six months.
As mentioned above, the spread between the 10-year and 1-year treasury inverted today, which is the first occurrence since October of 2019. Following prior inversions of this part of the yield curve since 1970, a recession has followed in the next two years 99.8% of the time which would suggest that a recession at some point in the next two years is almost certain. Following the first inversion in at least one year when a recession did follow, it has taken an average of 271 trading days to officially enter a recession. The shortest time it took to enter into a recession following 1s and 10s inversion was in 1973, when it took just 191 trading days. As mentioned, going back to 1970, recessions have followed within two years of an inversion 99.8% of the time. The only time that this part of the curve inverted and a recession did not follow within two years was after a brief stint in the fall of 1998.
STOCK MARKET VIDEO: Stock Market Analysis Video for Week Ending July 15th, 2022
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Here are the most notable companies (tickers) reporting earnings in this upcoming trading week ahead-
(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK’S MOST NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!)
Below are some of the notable companies coming out with earnings releases this upcoming trading week ahead which includes the date/time of release & consensus estimates courtesy of Earnings Whispers:
Monday 7.18.22 Before Market Open:
Monday 7.18.22 After Market Close:
Tuesday 7.19.22 Before Market Open:
Tuesday 7.19.22 After Market Close:
Wednesday 7.20.22 Before Market Open:
Wednesday 7.20.22 After Market Close:
Thursday 7.21.22 Before Market Open:
Thursday 7.21.22 After Market Close:
Friday 7.22.22 Before Market Open:
Friday 7.22.22 After Market Close:
(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY’S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)
(NONE.)
(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.)
(T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.) (T.B.A. THIS WEEKEND.).
DISCUSS!
What are you all watching for in this upcoming trading week?
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and a great trading week ahead r/stocks. 🙂
