Among the major companies, Ericsson and Nordea are first to report this Thursday, with quarterly reports from others due in the coming weeks.
This is happening against a backdrop of rising interest rates around the world, yet the stock market has held up, and several companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange have traded at "all-time highs".
"I think the reports will be strong, but I’m not entirely sure share prices will respond in the same way. It all depends on how confident the companies are about the future," says Jon Arnell.
His colleague Marie Giertz, chief strategist at Nordea, agrees. As so often, the key issue is the companies’ outlook.
"What do they see in their crystal ball regarding profits next year? How worried are they about the situation in the Middle East and, for example, rising energy prices?" she says.
Mixed up
While the AI wave has driven developments on Wall Street, the Stockholm Stock Exchange is dominated mainly by the engineering and banking sectors. Both are considered to have benefited recently from two factors: engineering companies from the increasingly weak Swedish krona, and banks from rising interest rates. This may now be reflected in their reports.
In addition, economic growth has accelerated, and talk of an impending boom is growing. However, investors are watching most closely how the economy develops in the US and what happens to long-term interest rates, which have risen sharply, Jon Arnell points out.
"We don’t think this is a time to sell at all, but we’d rather focus on risks right now than try to chase any potential upside from here," he says.
Uncertainty in the fixed-income market
Since the beginning of the year, the Stockholm Stock Exchange’s broad OMXS index is up around 7 percent. Marie Giertz notes that, historically, this is a relatively strong performance. Despite uncertainty in the fixed-income market, the US midterm elections and the energy crisis, there is probably still a little more to gain in the final months of the year, she says, based on historical trends at year-end:
"I think it may remain a little volatile and messy in the near future, but I’d still guess that we could see a small uptick," she says.