This week includes 451 earnings reports across three sessions: 116 on Tuesday, 138 on Wednesday, and 160 on Thursday. The volume of updates in a short window can shift sector tone and broader equity sentiment.
HSBC is used as a read on credit conditions through bank results and commentary. Walmart is used as a gauge of consumer demand, margins, and footfall trends, while Alibaba is used as a proxy for China, with earnings expected to drop sharply year on year.
Key Technical Levels And Near Term Setups
HSBC is in a short-term downtrend after breaking below its 6 February low, with pre-market near $88 around the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement. $88.18 is immediate resistance and the 1H Stochastic RSI is overbought.
Walmart is expected to open near $128.90, back inside a consolidation range, with support at $126.88, a pivot at $129.40, and range high at $131.76. The focus is whether price holds above $129.40 and avoids a move back to $126.88.
Alibaba remains in a short-term downtrend, supported near $152.80 at the 78.6% retracement, with $145 near the 100% retracement as the next level if $152.80 breaks. Resistance sits at $157–$160, with 1H momentum deeply oversold and price in the mid-$150s.
How Last Years Earnings Week Can Inform Positioning
We should remember how a dense wave of corporate updates can shift market sentiment, even when geopolitics seem to be the main story. Looking back at the heavy earnings week in February 2025, we saw how underlying assumptions were tested across key sectors. The lessons from that period are highly relevant for positioning ourselves in the coming weeks.
Last year, HSBC’s earnings gave us an early warning on global financial health, as their Q4 2024 results, reported in mid-February 2025, showed a steep 80% drop in pre-tax profits, largely due to a massive write-down on their stake in a Chinese bank. This highlights how financials can signal stress in credit conditions, so traders should now consider protective puts on banking ETFs if guidance from major banks sounds similarly cautious. This strategy offers a hedge against unexpected weakness in the core of the economy.
At that same time in 2025, Walmart served as our key consumer barometer, beating earnings expectations but issuing cautious guidance for the year ahead. This aligned with government data from January 2025 showing that retail sales had stalled, confirming that consumers were becoming more selective. Today, traders can use options to play the spread between consumer discretionary and consumer staples ETFs, betting that any hint of economic slowing will once again benefit sellers of necessities over wants.
Alibaba then provided the pulse on China, with its February 2025 report revealing its slowest quarterly revenue growth on record, reflecting the country’s broader economic challenges. This weakness was echoed by China’s official manufacturing PMI, which remained in contraction territory below 50 for a fourth straight month in January 2025. For the weeks ahead, this experience suggests using straddles or strangles on China-focused ETFs to position for a significant move, as any surprise in guidance—positive or negative—could cause a sharp repricing.
The main takeaway from that period last year is that earnings season can create volatility even when the market appears calm. With the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) currently hovering near multi-year lows around 14, option premiums are relatively inexpensive. This presents an opportunity to build defensive positions, such as buying put spreads on major indices, to protect against a scenario where optimistic assumptions about the economy are proven wrong.
