There Are Strange Rumblings Under Earnings Season’s Surface

The future is on trial.

It’s so hard to decipher what is happening inside and outside of markets that earnings season has become an unusually high-stakes debate over what happens next in the economy.

The tense dynamic always exists, but there is little to no margin for error this time around. Investors are worried that stock valuations could decline if corporate earnings are worse than expected and analysts lower future estimates.

The tribes of Wall Street—analysts, traders, fund managers, and economists—are essentially holding hands in a giant circle and looking at each other in hopes that someone soon deciphers the scene.

Everyone knows that the Federal Reserve is normalizing historically low interest rates, but few people, if any, seem to grasp the totality of what happens after two decades of accommodative monetary policy. The Fed’s rate-setting committee will conclude a two-day meeting on May 3. A quarter-point rate hike is expected—and that is all that is clear about the rate outlook.

The mighty bond market, which is considered more thoughtful and mature than the histrionic stock market, is often dour about the future. The stock market is nervous, but not in any major way.

One insight into investor sentiment can be gleaned from the options market, which is showing some unusual trading patterns in the earnings season’s nascent stages. Investors normally wager on earnings reports by pre-positioning with bullish calls or bearish put options on companies that are reporting. The actual report is then used to refine trades for peer stocks.

But this time around, investors are using one company’s earnings report as an opportunity to express directional biases with options on other, related stocks in expectation that a bad or good earnings report will move the sector in the same direction.

Late last week, for instance, saw widespread call buying in the financial sector in anticipation that good earnings from one top bank would spark sympathy rallies in others. Susquehanna Financial Group options strategist Chris Jacobson calls the trading “ripple exposure.”

The absence of the typical wait-and-see approach to earnings within a sector might reflect changes in how some investors are dealing with low volatility, and the specter that stocks will increasingly move with each other in response to macro events.

Goldman Sachs has advised clients that options are implying the average S&P 500 stock will move 4.4%—in either direction—on earnings day, down from the long-term average of 5.5%. The expectation that muted stock moves will continue could be wrong if analysts lower earnings estimates.

There isn’t much angst reflected in the Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, which is just under 17, below its long-term average of 19. Massive options funds that sell index options could be tamping down S&P 500 volatility, making it seem that investors aren’t worried about stocks.

The VIX’s low volatility could explain the “ripple exposure” trading, as equity-level volatility is often more robust than indexes. The VIX implies the S&P 500 will move about 1% each day, far less than its component stocks.

The S&P 500 is dancing around critical technical levels that tend to intrigue macro hedge funds. On most days, it seems that they are using futures to bully the index below technical resistance levels.

Todd Salamone, a strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research, noted that February’s 4160 high in the S&P 500 was followed by a greater than 7% drop over the next six weeks. “Bulls and the 4160 level have not mixed well in recent history,” he said.

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Originally Posted April 19, 2023 – There Are Strange Rumblings Under Earnings Season’s Surface

Steven M. Sears is the president and chief operating officer of Options Solutions, a specialized asset-management firm. Neither he nor the firm has a position in the options or underlying securities mentioned in this column.