The flood of reports

The flood of reports is the next test for Wall Street: “Catalyst”

Buy-hungry investors lifted the large-cap Nasdaq 100 index by just over 2 percent on Monday as last week’s tech fever seems to have blown away. At the same time, the next stock market test is just around the corner: the flood of reports.

The 21 percent rise for the broad S&P 500 over the past year has been driven entirely by companies’ profit growth, points out Goldman Sachs strategist Ben Snider.

“That makes the upcoming reporting season an important catalyst for the stock market’s future development,” he says.

Mark Hackett, chief strategist at Nationwide, believes that the stock market is now in a neutral position, where both fundamental and technical signals point in neither one direction nor the other.

– The next big test will be whether investors continue to buy on declines, whether this week's labor market statistics confirm concerns about an economic slowdown and how the market reacts when the reporting season gets underway, he tells Bloomberg.

Analysis: Set for a volatile summer stock market – save dry powder

When active investors swap stock screens for hammocks, unusually large fluctuations can occur in the market, writes EFN's Peter Hedlund.

When trading thins out, the market often becomes less efficient, which can open up great buying opportunities during the upcoming report flood.

"Good opportunities will emerge this summer and then it's good to have a little dry powder," he writes.

Aktiespararna's analysts Oliver Uusitalo and Lars Frick summarize in Aktiepodden what has characterized the first half of the year on the stock market – and what investors can expect during the next half.

On Lars Frick's wish list is an end to the Iran war and an economy that moves back towards normal levels. At the same time, there is a risk that Space X's giant listing could turn out to have been the peak of a stock market bubble, warns Uusitalo.

– I think that Space X is the crowning glory of the AI ​​hysteria and that the air will start to slowly drain out of there so that we can at least return to a normal stock market. The AI ​​bubble has reached space.