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Beyond Earnings: Five Things Investors Will Be Watching
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CNBC.com Senior Writer
3. More Earnings: Energy, Regional Banks
While many of the big financial companies and major Dow components have already reported earnings, there still are a handful out there.
Energy companies will be looked at particularly for their outlooks, while regional banks will be watched closely for deterioration in their commercial lending portfolios. Most report results this week or next.
In a broad review of third-quarter banking earnings, Keefe, Bruyette and Woods found "weak profitability" for small-cap banks to be among the biggest trends, and said commercial credit quality was slipping at an appreciable pace.
"The Goldman Sachses [GS
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] of the world did just fine, and investors have flocked to those situations," David Twibell, president of wealth management at Colorado Capital Bank in Denver, said in a recent interview. "By and large the real banking world out there, the regional banking world, is not doing well."
In energy, ConocoPhillips [COP
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] reports Wednesday, while earnings for ExxonMobil [XOM
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] are due Thursday, and Chevron [CVX
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] comes out Friday.
4. Progress in Healthcare
Investors remain concerned over the drastic revamping of the healthcare industry, as proposed by President Obama and making its way through Congress now.
Fitch ratings last week said it was downgrading more insurers that it covers, based primarily on concerns it has over how the companies will fare in competing with the government for the healthcare dollar.
But some analysts believe that the final bill to come out of Congress will be far less radical than the original plan, and will present opportunities across the healthcare spectrum.
"For investors in healthcare stocks, the longer Washington's logjam continues, the less threatening the final version of legislation is likely to be," John L. Sullivan, an analyst with Leerink Swan, said in a research note.
He added that "a discounted valuation offers healthcare investors an opportunity" and said the pickings will be especially ripe in biotech and managed care.
5. Buying Opportunity?
A general sentiment that the strong earnings run is leading to a natural pullback has some market pros sensing an opportunity.
"When it comes to the psychology part everybody is so afraid of seeing a ghost right now," National Securities' Kimmel says. "They're seeing things that don't exist."
In such a climate, Kimmel says smart investors will be selective. He recommends bulking up on small caps and international companies, which he says are traditional market leaders out of a bear cycle.
Technology as well remains popular among those who think the market could recoil against a pullback sentiment.
Richard Sparks, senior analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Reserach in Cincinnati, recommends mid-cap technology companies such as Juniper [JNPR
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] and Synaptics [SYNA
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], and counsels against buying into the talk of a natural selloff.
"I'd hesitate to be part of that big crowd that is always going to be worried about a pullback or think we definitely have to correct here," Sparks says. "I don't think it's time to lighten up. Ride the trend as far as it goes."
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
