SPX closed flat this week and we took advantage of yesterday volatility spike to add some long exposure to the the portfolio.
I will be hedging the long exposure next week with some more shorts in RUT, NDX and SPX if we have appropriate risk/reward ratio. Energy sector was the leader this week. On the other hand, I plan to add more shorts in Gold if we keep trading higher.
EARNING HIGHLIGHTS:
- Second quarter earnings are expected to increase 10.8% from Q2 2016. Excluding the Energy sector, the earnings growth estimate declines to 8.2%.
- Of the 289 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings to date for Q2 2017, 73.0% have reported earnings above analyst expectations. This is above the long-term average of 64% and above the average over the past four quarters of 71%.
- 70.9% of companies have reported Q2 2017 revenue above analyst expectations. This is above the longterm average of 59% and above the average over the past four quarters of 56%.
- For Q2 2017, there have been 83 negative EPS preannouncements issued by S&P 500 corporations compared to 45 positive EPS preannouncements. By dividing 83 by 45, one arrives at an N/P ratio of 1.8 for the S&P 500 Index.
- The forward four-quarter (3Q17 – 2Q18) P/E ratio for the S&P 500 is 17.9.
Third party data from Reuters