Earnings season is underway. So far, the companies that reported earnings have been somewhat mixed. The financial stocks such as J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo & Co (WFC) and others have sold off after reporting earnings. Nobody is expecting the earnings to be good after the economy has been shut down for over a month now. Unemployment numbers have been terrible and could get worse before they improve. The weekly jobless claims are tomorrow and they are expected to be bad again.

So why would anyone own the stock market right now? The reason is that the stock market is forward-looking. Think about it, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) dropped by 34.85% on March 23, 2020. Today, the DJIA is down about 18.2%, so that is a good reason to own stocks. The virus that has plagued the markets has not been cured and the economy is still shut down. So why did the markets bounce? The markets rebounded because it is forward-looking. It knows that the virus will be cured one way or another. It also knows that stock got too cheap. Now, this does not mean that markets are headed back to new all-time highs anytime soon. There has been a lot of damage done on the charts, but there are still stocks that are on sale and others that are looking attractive. The markets are still telling me that there is more upside in the cards, but remember, nothing goes straight up in a straight line.

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