Stocks surged aggressively last week as investor bets rose that rates have peaked in the aftermath of the FOMC’s decision to leave rates unchanged. Moreover, the labor market data cooled, signaling the Fed is done hiking.
The S&P 500 (SPX) added 5.9% to mark its best week of the year. Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) rose 5.1% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (IXIC) jumped 6.6%.
“The FOMC held steady, shrugging off strong data on the pretext of tightened financial conditions. But this dovish turn may have backfired, with financial conditions easing significantly this week amid some softer data. We retain our view that data momentum will force another hike, though we push back the timing to January,” analysts at Barclays said.
On the earnings front, about 80% of the S&P 500 companies have reported so far. Earnings have come better than expected, although forward guidance has been underwhelming.
On the economic data front, the Michigan confidence survey for November is out later this week. Fed Chair Jerome Powell will be speaking twice this week. Other Fed officials are on the speaker calendar too.
Earnings take backstage as Fed steals the show
According to FactSet’s data, 82% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive EPS surprise and 62% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive revenue surprise.
“3Q23 S&P500 EPS has come in ~7% above consensus to date, mostly on margin strength as sales beats are below recent quarterly trend. Despite 80% of firms beating EPS, guidance trends have disappointed and point to a cautious Q4,” analysts at Wells Fargo wrote in a note to clients.
For Q4 2023, 48 S&P 500 companies have issued negative EPS guidance and 27 S&P 500 companies have issued positive EPS guidance.
For Q3, the blended (year-over-year) earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 is 3.7%. As of September 30, analysts were looking for a Q3 earnings decline of 0.3% on an annual basis.
The important earnings reports this week include Uber (NYSE:UBER), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB), Arm (ARM), Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS), and the Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD).
What analysts are saying about US stocks
Analysts at Oppenheimer: “The S&P 500 reversed its breakdown at 4,200 last week. This indicates bears lacked conviction attempting to sell the market on a signal to do so. evidence of downside fatigue coupled with bull market pessimism leads us see the turn as a resumption of the S&P’s uptrend. The put/call ratio is also coming off its most pessimistic level since March and offers contrarian firepower for upside, in our view.”
Analysts at Morgan Stanley: “Equity indices experienced their strongest weekly rally all year led by many of the YTD laggards. While we will keep an open mind, the move thus far looks more like a bear market rally rather than the start of a sustained upswing, particularly in light of weaker earnings revisions and macro data.”
Analysts at JPMorgan: “We reiterate our call from October that bond yields are likely in the process of peaking during Q4, and that one should go long duration. As this view gets confirmation, it is in the short term interpreted by investors as a knee-jerk positive for equities, especially after some derisking that took place in the past months. Having said that, we believe that equities will soon revert back to an unattractive risk-reward into year end.”
Analysts at UBS: “In the near term, we expect equity markets to remain choppy and rangebound, though we see moderate upside over our forecast horizon. We prefer areas that have underperformed this year, including emerging market equities.”
Analysts at Sevens Report: “Given this is a market searching for “what’s next” and not riding a wave of sustainably new information (positive or negative) then that will keep me skeptical of either extreme in the current trading range, and that includes reminding you that fundamentals didn’t turn that bad two Friday’s ago (and as such the market reaction was extreme to the actual events) and that bad economic data (which we had last week) doesn't mean stocks should trade near the high end of the range, either.”