As fourth quarter earnings reports pick up speed, investors will shift their focus from monetary policy to look for signs of relief in company profits and other corporate metrics after economic uncertainty and worries around the Federal Reserve’s pace of interest rate hikes have weighed heavily on markets to start the new year.
The S&P 500 is down 2.79% in 2022 so far, while the Dow has lost 1.84%. The Nasdaq has shed a whopping -5.93% year-to-date, with more than one third of companies in the index at least 50% from their 52-week highs, according to Bloomberg data.
“We’ll have to see if earnings season comes to the rescue once again,” Ed Clissold, chief U.S. strategist at Ned Davis, told Bloomberg earlier this week. “Still, earnings revisions over the past several weeks weren’t as strong as other pre-announcement periods last year, which leads us to believe that we may not get those fantastic beat rates.”
In the energy and industrials sector, which typically serves as a key driver in fourth quarter results, underlying fundamentals may lack the strength to power markets this earnings season, PNC chief investment officer Amanda Agati told Yahoo Finance Live.
“Investors need to be starting to set their expectations a bit lower,” she said. “Not necessarily bearish, but we do think the moderation in terms of growth not only for earnings season going forward, but also for economic growth is really going to be a dominant theme.”