US stocks continued to rally on Wednesday, pushing the S&P 500 within reach of all-time highs. The benchmark index rose 0.4% as strong corporate earnings helped allay fears of higher inflation.

Reportedly, Verizon and Anthem performed better than expected, while Novavax, which postponed vaccinations again, fell along with Netflix after disappointing forecasts. Tesla, on the other hand, will report earnings after the markets close today.

This growth followed the S&P 500's best start to the reporting season in the last two years, as in the first week the index grew by about 3.6%.

"What we see is an earnings season that's likely to be more volatile than the last several," said Beata Kirr, co-head of investment strategies at Bernstein Private Wealth Management. Kirr explained that profits have grown 45% y/y over the past couple of quarters, while the forecast for 2022 is a more moderate growth of around 9% y/y.

Meanwhile, the yield on the 10-year Treasury bonds remained largely unchanged as corporate earnings took attention away from fears of stagflation. But economic recovery is gradually slowing, mainly due to higher energy costs, bottlenecks in the global supply chain and reduced support from the central bank.

At the same time, demand for dollar continued to decline because more and more traders are betting that central banks around the world will raise interest rates before the Federal Reserve. But Governor Randal Quarles said the Fed is "on track" in its monetary policy and they view current price increases as temporary.

"The market is very much testing how equipped companies and the rest of the economy are to be able to manage this type of transition where we have a less aggressive Fed, less supportive fiscal policy and more normal levels of economic growth," said Kestra CIO Kara Murphy. "There are definitely concerns out there, but for now risk assets seem to be brushing off those concerns," she added.

Other important events for this week are:

- earnings reports from AT&T, Barclays and Tesla;

- Conference Board data on leading US indicators, report on US secondary home sales, data on US jobless claims (Thursday);

- panel discussion on policy issues (Friday).