Are Stocks Waiting for Guidance? - Real Time Insight

Stocks seem to be at an interesting point. Trading at 13X this year's expected EPS of about $103 on the S&P 500, they are arguably cheap.

But they stay cheap because of the financial crisis in Europe and slowing US economic data.

And here we are coming into 2Q earnings season which is expected to hand us a not-altogether thrilling boost of 2% from last year. And that's after 1Q gave us 9.2% growth.

I think the stock market should be trading lower since corporate profits (both the expectations for them and their reality) have topped in a sluggish US economy, to say nothing of Europe getting worse.

But here we are holding above the post-EU summit gap up to S&P 1,348.

Other than bulls having some technical points in their favor, are investors waiting to hear from a good chunk of companies -- especially their forward guidance -- before hitting the buy or sell buttons again?

I think the selling will resume if the guidance from a few sectors cites global growth worries.

What will make the buyers come in? (other than a big round of stimulus from China).

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