Harding and Company – What to Watch for in the Markets this Week

MANHATTAN, N.Y. - Oct. 14, 2018 - PRLog -- "After Thursday's bloodbath, US equities staged a nice rally to close out the week on Friday, even after a number of intraday attempts to push stocks lower," said Senior Advisor, Mark Lewis at Harding and Company.

"The buyers finished with the upper hand for now, but bulls are far from out of the woods at this point. Like any major shock to the system, there are nearly always aftershocks that we will have to contend with in the near term."

On Friday, third quarter earnings season unofficially kicked off with big U.S. banks leading the way as JP Morgan, Citi, Wells Fargo, and PNC, all reported results, and the news was generally solid. The market's volatility to end the week, however, was somewhat independent of any reaction to specific earnings results.

In the week ahead, earnings season will pick up with more than 50 members of the S&P 500 scheduled to report earnings.

Notable reports this week should include Bank of America reporting on Monday; Netflix, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, United Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, BlackRock, and IBM reporting on Tuesday; Abbot Labs and United Rentals reporting on Wednesday; American Express, PayPal, Philip Morris, Travelers, BNY Mellon, Textron, PPG, and Danaher reporting on Thursday; and Procter & Gamble, Honeywell, Kansas City Southern, and Schlumberger reporting on Friday.

The economic calendar's highlight will come on Monday when the September report on retail sales is released, which is expected to show a rebound after disappointing in August, with the minutes from the Fed's latest policy meeting out Wednesday also closely watched.

Economic calendar

• Monday: Empire State manufacturing activity, October (20 expected; 19 previously); Retail sales, September (+0.6% expected; +0.1% previously)
• Tuesday: Industrial production, September (+0.2% expected; +0.4% previously); Capacity utilization, September (78.2% expected; 78.1% previously); Homebuilder sentiment, October (67 expected; 67 previously); Job openings and labor turnover survey,, August (6.875 million job openings expected; 6.939 million previously)
• Wednesday: Housing starts, September (-5.6% expected; +9.2% previously); Building permits, September (+2.1% expected; -5.7% previously); FOMC minutes
• Thursday: Philly Fed business outlook, October (20 expected; 22.9 previously); Initial jobless claims, October (210,000 expected; 214,000 previously)
• Friday: Existing home sales, September (-0.8% expected; 0% previously)

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