This is one of the busiest weeks I've seen in a while, and it's not just one thing colliding with another — it's several.
Five major bank earnings, a new Fed Chair's first congressional testimony, the June CPI print, an escalating Iran situation, and a tech sector trying to decide whether it's actually recovering or just catching its breath. All in the space of about four trading days.
None of this is a reason to panic. It's a reason to be prepared. There's a real difference between the two, and that difference is basically the whole point of this post.
Tuesday's the big one — five banks, one morning
Before the US market even opens Tuesday, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup all report Q2 earnings — the same morning the June CPI print lands. If you want a single session that tells you where risk appetite actually sits going into the back half of earnings season, this is it.
The sector context first. XLF, the financials ETF I use as my top-of-the-funnel read, closed last week at $55.71 — just 1.5% off its 52-week high of $56.59, having run up from a low of $47.67. Despite that run, the sector's trading at roughly 15.5x forward earnings, about a turn and a quarter cheaper than where it sat back in 2024. This isn't a valuation-stretched melt-up; the re-rating's been earned, not hyped.
Worth balancing that against one thing: Oppenheimer downgraded Bank of America, Citi, Goldman and Morgan Stanley about two weeks ago, on 30 June. Their reasoning, more or less verbatim, was to take the money and run — fresh highs across the board, and their view is the easy money's been made. I don't automatically agree with that call, but it's a fair counterweight and I'm not pretending it doesn't exist just because it's bearish.
What the Street's actually watching for isn't really the EPS headline. Consensus leaves room for several of the five to beat, but no beat is ever guaranteed, and the share price reaction is likely to hinge more on guidance, net interest margin (the spread between what banks earn lending and pay on deposits — the core profitability engine), credit quality (charge-offs, provisions, anything pointing to consumer stress), and investment banking and trading revenue, which got a real boost this quarter from the SpaceX IPO pulling serious trading volume through the desks.
Options markets are pricing some proper moves as of Friday's close: Goldman 6.0%, Citi 5.5%, Wells Fargo around 4.5%, Bank of America 4.5%, JPMorgan 4.4%. Worth remembering these shift with the share price and options market, so treat them as a Friday snapshot rather than gospel by Tuesday morning. Either way, that's the market telling you it genuinely doesn't know which way this goes.
The five, one by one (consensus estimates and analyst targets below per StockAnalysis data as of Friday's close — different data providers show slightly different numbers depending on their analyst sample, so treat these as directional rather than exact):
JPMorgan (JPM) — $336.47, just 2% off its 52-week high of $343.45. Consensus wants $5.49 EPS on $48.7bn revenue, up 10.7% and 8.5% year on year respectively. Smallest implied move of the group at 4.4%, Buy rating, target $351.81. This is the steady one — least fireworks expected, which makes it more of a market barometer than a trade setup.
Bank of America (BAC) — $59.67, hit a fresh record high last week. Consensus $1.12 EPS on $30.7bn revenue, up 25% year on year, eight straight quarters of beats. Buy, target $65.31. Strong momentum name — but that same momentum is exactly what makes a 4.5% implied swing dangerous if it doesn't land clean.
Goldman Sachs (GS) — $1,055.18, about 6% off its high of $1,125. This is the one that stands out for the wrong reason: Goldman is the only Hold out of the five, and its price target of $1,009.70 actually sits below the current share price. It's also carrying the biggest implied move at 6%. Revenue's expected at $15.8–16.5bn, up 13%, with the Global Banking & Markets arm alone forecast at $12.1bn — Goldman's already topped $1 trillion in M&A advisory this year, the fastest any bank's ever got there. Big tailwind if it shows in the print. But a lukewarm analyst base going into the loudest implied move of the group is worth sitting up for.
Citigroup (C) — $140.79, about 5% off its high. Expected to show the biggest NIM improvement of the five, still with real ground to make up on its own performance targets. Cheapest forward multiple of the group at 12.5x, Buy, target $153.05. This is my turnaround candidate.
Wells Fargo (WFC) — $87.16, the laggard, 11% off its 52-week high of $97.76. Worth getting this right: the Fed's asset cap, imposed after the 2016 fake-accounts scandal, was actually removed back in June 2025, and the underlying enforcement action was formally terminated this March — so the "still boxed in by regulators" story is out of date. That's precisely why Goldman added it to their US Conviction List recently on the view it's "shifting from defense to offense": the cap being gone is the whole basis for that thesis, not a caveat on it. It's carrying the highest analyst upside of the five, roughly 12–13% to target. It's also the only one of the group where estimates have been trimmed slightly rather than raised, so there's a genuine split of opinion here.
Given the size of these implied moves, this reads as a watch-list week rather than a trade-into-the-print week. My rule is a confirmation candle before any entry, full stop, and I'm not making an exception for a bank stock just because the setup looks interesting on paper. I'll be watching Citi's NIM story and Wells Fargo's re-rating hardest for a genuine setup once the initial reaction settles. Goldman's the one I'll leave alone regardless of how the print goes — a Hold rating with a below-market target going into the loudest implied move of the group isn't a setup I want to fight.
The rest of the macro calendar
Tuesday alone is CPI and the first day of Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's congressional testimony, on top of the banks. Wednesday brings PPI and Warsh's second day in front of the Senate. Thursday's retail sales, initial jobless claims and the Philly Fed index. Friday closes it out with Michigan Consumer Sentiment, preliminary read.
Consensus wants June CPI to ease slightly, with core inflation expected to hold around 2.8–2.9%. The Fed's formal 2% inflation target is actually measured off the separate PCE price index, not CPI, but the read-through is the same either way — underlying inflation is still running well above where the Fed wants it. Warsh has already been open about a "family fight" inside the Fed over whether to resume hikes, with the committee genuinely split on another increase this year, and markets are pricing a real chance of a September move. That's the tension underpinning the entire week: a soft print would support Warsh easing off the hawkish rhetoric, but a hot number landing right as he gives his first testimony as Chair could get uncomfortable fast.
On top of that, the Iran situation is not a quiet background risk right now — it's live. The US and Iran exchanged fresh strikes over the weekend, the fourth round in the past week, with Iran hitting US bases across the Gulf and both sides trading accusations over who controls the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil's moved on it again. That's a real, active input into this week's inflation and market-sentiment picture, not a story that's faded into the background.
Tech: recovering, but let's not get carried away
Tech's had a bounce over the past week — XLK ran from around $180 back up toward $185. If you only looked at the last five days, you'd think the worst was behind us.
Zoom out to the daily chart and the picture's less convincing. XLK is still roughly 7% off its 52-week high of $198.73, and it's been carrying a sell signal from a pivot top made back on 2 June — a signal that's been right so far, with the index down meaningfully from that level even after this week's bounce. There's also a volume divergence worth noting: price has been rising on falling volume the last couple of sessions, which is exactly the kind of thing that tends to warn of a stalling move rather than confirm a genuine reversal.
This is a recovery attempt inside a short-term daily downtrend, not yet a change of trend — that's my read on it, not an objective fact, but it's the more cautious of the two interpretations and I'd rather be cautious than early. Those are two very different things, and mixing them up is how people end up buying a bounce right before it fails. Add in an Iran situation that's actively escalating rather than fading, and a week where five major banks and a new Fed Chair are about to throw a lot of fresh information at the market, and I think the sensible read is simple: we don't have enough information yet to call this a bottom. The next few weeks will answer a lot of the open questions. Until they do, I'm watching, not chasing.
What this means for what I'm actually holding
I'm currently in Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and McKesson. None of the three report earnings this week — all three report 5 August — so the risk here isn't a binary earnings gap like the banks are facing. It's something quieter: rate-repricing risk from CPI and Warsh.
McKesson is sitting almost exactly inside the decision zone I built my tranche plan around — hard stop at $784, second tranche trigger on a close above $810 or a pullback hold at $795–800.
Friday's close was $805.96, right in the middle of that box. I'm not forcing the second tranche this week. A hot CPI print or a hawkish Warsh could easily spike it through $810 intraday on pure macro noise that has nothing to do with McKesson's own story. Confirmation candle, not a knee-jerk reaction, decides that trade.
Eli Lilly is the strongest chart of the three.
It broke out hard on 29 June, printing what's still the high of the move, and while it's pulled back around 5% since — RSI cooled out of overbought territory after tagging 70+ twice during the run-up — the EMA stack is still in proper order, 9 above 20 above 50, and price is holding above the 20 EMA. All backed by a string of price target raises, JPMorgan among them lifting to $1,400. The risk isn't the trend, it's the multiple: high-momentum, high-multiple names get hit hardest in the first hour if rates reprice higher on a hot CPI or a hawkish Warsh.
I'm watching the 20 EMA as my line in the sand here — hold it and the trend's intact, lose it and this becomes a different conversation. Not adding into strength this week either way. Stop stays where it is, trend keeps working.
Novo Nordisk has the most drama in its chart history of the three, but the current picture is stronger than that history suggests.
It bottomed near $35 in April after a brutal breakdown earlier in the year, and since then it's built a genuinely clean recovery — EMA9 above EMA20 above EMA50, in proper order, with consistent higher lows through May and June. Right now it's testing the ~$48 level, which is exactly the zone it broke down through back in February — a former breakdown point being retested as potential support. RSI touched overbought in early July and has eased back into the mid-60s since, which is healthy digestion, not weakness. This is a "prove it" level rather than a red flag: hold above $48 and the reclaim is confirmed, reject it and this rolls back into the range it's spent months building. Given the size of the move already made, I'm not chasing it here — but this is a level worth watching for a genuine breakout setup, not the one I'd flag as most likely to stop out.
The actual point of this post
None of the above is a reason to do anything dramatic. It's a reason to make sure the boring stuff is already in place before Tuesday morning, because once the headlines start hitting, boring and calm is exactly what stops you doing something you'll regret by Thursday.
Stops are set. I know what invalidates each position. I know what I'm not doing — I'm not entering any of the five banks before Tuesday's numbers are out and the dust has settled, I'm not chasing the tech bounce, and I'm not forcing the McKesson tranche on a CPI spike either. A stop loss only works if you actually let it do its job instead of getting there first out of fear, and a setup only works if you wait for it to actually trigger instead of jumping the gun out of excitement that a bounce might be "the one."
That's the discipline this week is actually testing. Not whether I can predict what CPI prints or what Warsh says — nobody can do that reliably, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. What I can control is not trading my account based on how each headline makes me feel in the moment. Risk analysis and stop losses did the hard thinking already, days before the news hit. My job this week is just to let that plan do its job and stay out of its way.
I'll do a proper follow-up once Tuesday's numbers are out and we can see which of these — banks, tech, or the healthcare names — actually gives us something tradeable.
As always, I'm not a financial advisor and none of this is financial advice — I'm a bloke who trades his own money and writes down what I'm actually doing. Omera Trading is not authorised or regulated by the FCA. Do your own research, and never risk more than you can afford to lose.
