Wall Street Gears up for Q4 Earnings Season

You wouldn’t know it by Monday’s market activity, but Q4 earnings season begins this week. They get underway in earnest Tuesday morning, although as Zacks Director of Research Sheraz Mian points out, we’ve already seen 19 companies report quarterly earnings for this cycle, including FedEx (FDX), Nike (NKE) and Oracle (ORCL).

Ahead of tomorrow’s open, Delta Air Lines (DAL) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) both report Q4 numbers. Both companies currently carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), with Delta expected to bring -17.3% earnings growth year over year, -0.81% on revenues. JPMorgan looks to gain +4.16% on earnings and +6.8% on revenues. Delta is riding a string four-straight earnings beats; JPMorgan has not missed on earnings since 2022.

Big Banks on Wall Street continue the Q4 earnings parade Wednesday, when Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and Wells Fargo (WFC) bring forth results. On Thursday, we hear from Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) and BlackRock (BLK) report. After the close that day, we’ll also get Q4 earnings from Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM).

December Inflation Rate from CPI Tuesday

In addition to earnings reports, Tuesday morning also brings us the updated Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for December, including a headline year-over-year Inflation Rate. This is expected to come in at +2.7%, in-line from the previous month but -30 basis points (bps) lower than the prior print in September. Core CPI year over year is also supposed to reach +2.7%, up 10 bps month over month.

Wednesday, the other shoe drops: the Producer Price Index (PPI) for December was also +2.7% in the last report, +2.9% on core, year over year. Keep in mind there are questions whether the last reports included all pertinent data; for instance, the Owners Equivalent Rent line item last month registered 0, which is almost certainly inaccurate. In normal times, we would expect clear revisions based on new findings from the prior period. Perhaps we’ll see them, but it’s hard to argue that these are “normal times.”

What to Expect from Today’s Stock Market

Pre-market futures are in the red this morning, with the Dow -311 points, the S&P 500 -38, the Nasdaq -196 points and the small-cap Russell 2000 -8. Trading is up over past five sessions and year to date, led by the Russell +2.9%. The Dow is up +1.4% since the start of the year and the Nasdaq and S&P are +0.5% and +0.4%, respectively. Most analysts are anticipating another good trading year; so far, so good.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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