US equity bulls are betting heavily on the pending quarterly earnings season to bolster their level of conviction and their positions.

For months bears have been waving flags – pointing to the eventual fading impact of the Republican tax cuts and the surge in US government spending as well as the continual rise in US interest rates – and yet investors mostly retain their fear of missing out.

Signature Bank (NASDAQ:SBNY) – Investment analysts at Wedbush issued their FY2020 EPS estimates for Signature Bank in a report released on Wednesday, September 26th. Wedbush analyst D. Chiaverini expects that the bank will earn $11.85 per share for the year. Wedbush currently has a “Neutral” rating and a $131.00 price target on the stock.

Each of the last candles on all three timeframes for the S&P 500 closed higher than its prior time-period candle.

The most notable feature of the Yearly chart, in particular, is that price could, in fact, reach a resistance target of 3033 (as I described in my post of August 6th) by the end of this year. Such a price level would end up producing a candle range for 2018 on the Yearly timeframe that equals or slightly exceeds the candle range of each of the prior two years. It would also complete a very bullish cycle for this year.

The third quarter is now in the books, and the revival of market volatility and uncertainty around key thematic influences carries over into the fourth quarter of 2018. With fundamental issues around US-led trade wars, Brexit, the Italian government, Turkey, emerging market contagion, among others lingering, the final three months of the year should produce opportunities across asset classes.

See all of the from the Quarterly Forecasts to the Top Trading Opportunities, How to Trade Event Risk, Building Confidence in Trading and so much more.

September 28 was a positive day for BlackBerry Limited (BB:CA) as its stock finished the day having gained 10.17% to hit a price of $14.62 a share. The company reached a market cap of 7.86 billion and has 537.77 million shares outstanding. BlackBerry Limited is a component of the the S&P/TSX Composite Index.

LONDON – Global investors increased holdings of U.S. equities to their highest since May 2015 in September while reducing their exposure to emerging-market assets, where a majority believe the shake-out still has some way to go.

Global share prices accelerated upward in the third quarter, building on the rebound started in the preceding three months. The benchmark MSCI World stock index is on pace to add 5-6 percent for the period. That such performance can be had against a backdrop of a deepening trade war between the US and China as well as increasing emerging market instability is almost improbably impressive. One might conclude perseverance against such odds speaks to hearty underlying strength, making continuation likely. Still, critical vulnerabilities are much too glaring to ignore; the global economy has decelerated in 2018.

Caesarstone Ltd. (CSTE) traded on unusually high volume on Sep. 28, as the stock lost 1.59% to close at $18.55. On the day, Caesarstone Ltd. saw 287,554 shares trade hands on 2,440 trades. Considering that the stock averages only a daily volume of 177,184 shares a day over the last month, this represents a pretty significant bump in volume over the norm.

Following the recent emerging markets weakness, driven by dollar strength, tighter financial conditions in the US and, in some cases, domestic politics, market watchers are looking at EM assets again.

The chart below shows that FTSE EM equities have moved to a c.21% PE ratio discount to FTSE World equities (dark blue line). In P/E terms, FTSE World equities are trading at 15.5x earnings and EM equities at 12.2x.

Mayberry Jamaica Equities Limited, MJE, which holds minority positions in listed companies, has raised $2.2 billion in cash to make new investments in stocks.