Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings season to test hopes for broader stocks rally

NEW YORK: Hopes that the US stocks rally will broaden beyond megacaps like Nvidia will be tested in coming weeks as investors learn whether profit growth from other companies is starting to catch up with that of the tech-related leaders.

The S&P 500 has rallied 16% so far in 2024, driven by a handful of massive stocks poised to benefit from emerging artificial intelligence technology. Only 24% of stocks in the S&P 500 outperformed the index in the first half, the third-narrowest six-month period since 1986, according to BofA Global Research strategists.

Meanwhile, the equal-weight S&P 500 — a proxy for the average stock — is only up around 4% this year. As of Tuesday, about 40% of S&P 500 components were down for the year.

Second-quarter earnings kick off next week with major banks including JPMorgan and Citigroup reporting on July 12. Investors will be watching whether profits from other companies are catching up with the “Magnificent 7”: Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Tesla, many of which rebounded from struggles in 2022. Investors generally view a narrow rally as more fragile, because weakness in just a few big stocks could sink indexes, but some hope gains will spread during the second half.

More companies are projected to post improved earnings as many investors expect the economy to navigate a soft landing, which could boost stocks trading at more moderate valuations than market leaders.

“If we’re looking for a catalyst to have broader participation in this rally this year, the second-quarter earnings reporting season may well be the start of that,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth.

The S&P 500 is trading at about 21 times forward earnings estimates, but if the top 10 stocks by market value are excluded that figure drops to 16.5 on average for the rest of the index, Hogan said.

In a further sign of the narrow rally, the information technology and communication services sectors, which include most of the Magnificent 7, are the only two of 11 S&P 500 sectors to outperform the broader index this year.

Earnings among the Magnificent 7 rose 51.8% year-on-year in the first quarter compared to 1.3% earnings growth for the rest of the S&P 500, according to Tajinder Dhillon, senior research analyst at LSEG.