In wake of IBM, tech bellwethers line up for 'biggest earnings season in a decade'
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News


With everything from inflation, the Federal Reserve's next economic moves and the possibility of war between Russia and Ukraine garnering headlines all at the same time, it wouldn't be surprising for the current round of tech earnings reports to play second fiddle in the minds of investors, and on Wall Street.

But, even all those exterior events can't put a damper on the attention being paid to what numerous tech companies have to say about their latest quarterly results. With Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and IBM (NYSE:IBM) already clocking in with their fourth-quarter reports, the sector is kicking in with what Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said is the "biggest tech earnings season in a decade" at a time when tech stocks have been largely battered by skittish investor sentiment.
"In a jittery macro and Fed rising rate backdrop, tech stocks have become enemy No. 1 of the [market] bears," Ives said, in a research note. "In decades of covering tech stocks on the Street we have heard this negative valuation driven narrative in one form or another many times."
Ives said that in spite of the recent negativity that has been directed toward many leading tech stocks, "the underlying growth drivers of the tech space today are unmatched to anything we have seen since the mid-1990s" and are not being taken into consideration when it comes to pricing tech stocks at the present time.
With IBM (IBM) reporting upbeat results on Monday, and seeing its shares rise more than 3% in response, Ives said the tech sector has provided investors with at least something to turn positive about, as the company's results suggest the market for cloud-technology spending is looking strong this year.
Still, Ives said that with fundamentals in focus, "the Street now needs to hear good news at a 'white knuckle time' from tech bellwethers." Among the largest of those are Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which is set to report its fiscal first-quarter results on Thursday, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) which will deliver its fourth-quarter report on Wednesday, and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), which reports its quarterly results after Tuesday's market close.