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Stocks Turn Higher For The Week With Earnings Season In Focus

The markets rallied on Tuesday with the indexes turning up for the week. Granted, there's still more week left, but if stocks can keep this up, that would make it four up weeks in a row. That's a feat not seen since July of last year. And prior to that, you'd have to go all the way back to December 2017.

Excitement is high with Q4 earnings season kicking into gear.

Even though we've already had some high profile companies report already, the official start to earnings season actually begins this afternoon when Alcoa reports after the close.

By the way, Alcoa is only the so-called 'official' start of earnings season because it was once the first Dow component to report earnings. Just like Hewlett-Packard has been called the official end of earnings season because it used to be the last of the Dow components to report earnings.

Ironically, both AA and HPQ are no longer part of the Dow Jones Index. But after bookending earnings season for so long, that tradition has stuck, regardless of their current Dow non-membership status.

I should also mention that Alcoa is no longer some great barometer of the market or the economy. Once upon a time that was true. But that was a long, long time ago. So I wouldn't be overly concerned with what they report later today. Nevertheless, it would still be nice to see a beat.

There's 'only' 107 companies reporting earnings between today and the rest of the week. But the number of companies steadily grows week by week with over 3,800 companies reporting earnings over the next 6 weeks.

There will be plenty of hits and misses. But with stocks typically going up during earnings season, I'm expecting a lot more winners than losers. And we all know how stocks can soar if they positively surprise. It's not uncommon to see stocks surge 10%, 15%, or even 20% or more in one day on a fantastic report.

And with stocks still trading at deep discounts from where they were just a few short months ago, and even years ago, we could see some explosive gains this earnings season.

See you tomorrow,

Kevin Matras

Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research

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