Investors unmoved by Syria attack

last seen in March 2015. Despite the 1% fall in early trading, I think there’s still a lot of risk premium in current prices, and with further ease in geopolitical tensions, I expect to see an additional drop below $70.

It’s going to be a busy week ahead for financial markets, specifically on the earning front, with about 60 S&P 500 companies due to report results. So far, 70% of companies that already reported actual results managed to beat Wall Street expectations on EPS. If the positive surprise didn’t diverge from current levels, there’s a high likelihood of companies reporting 20% growth in earnings. Tax cuts are undoubtedly the key factor behind the expected earnings growth. Additional factors were also in play, including the dollar’s weakness which boosted multinational overseas earnings, and the rise in the price of oil, which is expected to boost earnings growth in the energy sector by 79%, according to FactSet.

With such a positive earning season and with better valuations compared to a year ago, there’s a good reason for the bulls to take over control. However, this also depends on how much noise we’ll have in the background,whether it is Russia-U.S. relations, Middle East geopolitics, trade tensions or higher inflation expectations; the list goes on.

There’s also a lot of data releases this week to attract traders’ attention. In the U.S., the economic calendar focuses on housing and manufacturing sectors, but retail sales figures are likely to move the dollar the most. Chinese first quarter GDP results are released on Tuesday and markets expect a 6.7% growth YoY. Trade tensions will be an important factor to focus on over the coming quarters, but so far China continues to grow at healthy levels. Any upside surprise in China’s GDP could potentially send the Aussie higher.