 Welcome traders to another TickMill earning season preview with me, Patrick Munley. Before we jump into today's report, as always, we want to adhere to the risk disclaimer, most pertinent to today's presentation is the fact the views and opinions expressed by me are solely mine. They're not indicative or representative of those held by TickMill UK or TickMill Europe Limited. So, okay, let's jump into today's report and we are actually going to take a look at First Republic Bank. Not normally an earnings preview that we would cover, but given recent events, this one is certainly going to be of interest to the markets. First Republic are set to announce earnings after the close of trade in New York trading today. We are looking at a revenue, EPS, sorry, per share of 95 cents based on revenue of 1.22 billion. Following the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank in March, First Republic faced similar concerns over the sustainability of uninsured deposits and unrealized losses in its security portfolio that could be booked in case of a fire set. To combat the crisis, First Republic obtained additional liquidity access from the Federal Reserve Bank and JP Morgan Chase. It fortified the bank's financial position with more than 70 billion in unused funds for operations to be used in the event of a deposit flight. Also, it received uninsured deposits aggregating 30 billion from 11 banks of the country showcasing confidence in First Republic. Companies first quarter 2023 revenues and earnings are likely to have declined year over year, reflecting the current stress environment. First Republic has an impressive earnings surprise history. It's earning surprise the consensus estimate in the trailing four quarters. The average beat was 3.71 percent. The lending environment though has weakened in the first quarter of this year with the pace of loan growth across most categories slowing down. Per the Fed's latest data residential real estate loans, commercial real estate loans and consumer loan growth have all declined. This is likely to have reduced the overall loan demand to be reported quarter from quarter at the end of 2022. Also, slow growth in loan as demands call in the light of higher rates in an uncertain economic environment is expected to have hindered First Republic's lending activity. Federal Reserve have obviously hiked rates by 50 basis points to be reported in the quarter and the 25 basis point in the prior quarter. The policy rate has reached 4.75 percent, 5 percent higher since 2008. Such successive rate hikes have limited any further positive impact on the company's net interest income. Also, yield curve inversion and rising funding costs in the March quarter are likely to have hindered the bank's net interest margin and consensus mark for the net interest income is actually pegged at around 990 million suggesting a 15.7 percent fall on a sequential basis. The bank does also have a robust wealth management practice with a focused on personalized customer service experience through its relationship banking model. It has also been expanding its investment management service offering to clients as well. These efforts are expected to have aided the company in onboarding new customers. However, given the concerns faced by First Republic post the closure of SBB and a worsening economic backdrop, the company is likely to have lost its customer base during the quarter. Uncertainty due to recession fears has dampened the market performance, weaker equity markets and low deal making activity during the quarter are expected to have affected First Republic's wealth management revenues and assets. Nonetheless, the consensus estimate for investment management fees is pegged at 153 billion implying a rise of a 0.5 percent sequentially. Let's take a look at some of the statistical trading patterns around First Republic earnings releases. First Republic shares have a tendency to move higher in the immediate aftermath of only 7 out of 12 previous reports. On average though, the stock has moved down at the end of the first day of trading for a loss of negative 0.2 percent on the day. Based on the previous 12 earnings releases, First Republic is more likely to trade lower one day after earnings for an average loss of 0.1 percent. Moving to the analyst community, and as you can imagine, there has been a sway in opinion of late, of 16 analysts that cover the stock. Only three have it as a buy. 12 are saying keep on hold and one as a strong sell. In terms of price estimates, obviously they have swung significantly as well in recent weeks. The downside would suggest an $8 price target, and the average target for the next 12 months is a 61.75 cents per share, and then the max upside we're talking about is $148 per share. In terms of sentiment and flow data, there has been a bit of a bullish move in terms of the options market. There's been over $13,661 contracts traded, the $15 call, which expires on Friday. An options order flow sentiment in general has been bullish. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings has only 47 percent expecting an earnings being predicted. Move after earnings announcements has been 4.8 percent, and on average the actual earnings move has been around 3.9 percent in absolute terms. The options market notably has overestimated the First Republic stock earnings move 83 percent of the time in last 12 quarters. That said, let's pull up the First Republic chart and see if there is any immediate trading opportunities that we can identify. Obviously, you can see the decline that we saw during the crisis in March, which has stabilized now, albeit at much lower levels or trading around the $14 mark. To my mind from a technical perspective, we can track this as a five-wave sequence, so we're going to call this wave one, wave two high here, an extended wave three, wave four, and a fifth wave, which should have completed now. Now, what I'm looking for here is pretty simple really. I'm going to lean on that $15 call idea for Friday, and I want to be a buyer of this stock. I'm going to be using the year-to-date lows as a stop, so let's say $11.65. I'm going to be using an $11 stop on this, and I'm going to be looking for that $15 level to pull us into a trade. What I'm actually anticipating now, and this is a technical setup, that we'll see a three-wave corrective move to actually retest the wave four high, which should take us into that $50 level. Just above there, we have the $54.94 level as the 38.2 percent retracement of the entire decline, which technically often gets tested in a correction. Obviously, the alternative scenario would be that we don't test the $15 level. We are trading $14.55 in the pre-market at the moment, but if we take out that $11.41 swing low there, then I would anticipate we will be down taking a look at that $8 level as the next downside objective. But for now, I'm going to look to play this from the bullish side, and we're looking for a move through $15 using an $11 stop, and we're going to target ultimately a grind up over coming weeks and months to test that $50 level. As always, trade does plan the trade, trade the plan, and most importantly, manage your risk. Until next time, thanks very much.