In the comments below (or send an email to [email protected]) please let us know your answer to the question: “Who’s more scared right now, the bulls or the bears?”
It’s earnings season! Just like that, it’s already earnings season again, that time that comes every three months when all publicly traded companies are required to report how their business has gone for the last quarter. The good news is that the corporate economy has continued to plow through to new all-time high earnings across the board just as I’ve been predicting for the last few years and that I’d expect that earnings come in once again at all-time highs.
The really good news is that I’ve already seen two articles today explaining why earnings season is likely to disappoint investors. You know that contrarianism is a way of life.
Now all that said, the bad news is that the markets are already at or near all-time highs and that can sometimes lead to a sell-the-earnings reaction no matter how earnings come in.
Feet to fire, I’d expect a “better than expected” earnings season and I’m also expecting that stocks will rise and be rewarded for strong earnings growth. As always though, we’ll want to see how a few of these stocks react to their individual earnings reports for the first few days of earnings season to get a better gauge of what’s priced in for the near-term here.
I’m sticking with my somewhat aggressive net long positioning for the overall portfolio, which means that I’ve got a lot more capital committed to my longs (both common and call options), than I do in my short positions (both common and put options). I’ve added a few new longs, including Facebook FB +1.48% and Lindsay LNN -0.03% in recent weeks as well as some new short positions including Pearson PSO -0.92% .
Because I was much more aggressive in my buying of FB than I was in anything else, and because I bought more Apple calls right before it broke out and added to some of our other existing long positions, I’ve gotten to be more net long than I was just a month ago.
And the point is that I remain bullish and long as we head into earnings season, for better or worse.
And all that leads me to ask the question I love to ask when I think the markets are at a cross-roads — who’s more scared right now, the bulls or the bears? In the comments below (or send an email to [email protected]) please let us know your answer to the question: “Who’s more scared right now, the bulls or the bears?”
Cody Willard writes Revolution Investing for MarketWatch and posts the trades from his personal account at TradingWithCody.com. At time of publication, Cody was net long Facebook, Lindsay, and Apple and net short Pearson. Follow Cody on twitter at http://twitter.com/codywillard
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