Share price down 6.5% YTD, will the earnings offer an incentive for H2?

Taking a look at JNJ’s stock ahead of the Pharma giant reports its earnings tomorrow. The firm is expected to report an EPS of $2.72 on revenue of 22.34bn. The pre-market share price is currently around $149.77 a share, the stock’s shares are down around 6.5% year-to-date. The chart offers a guide for potential upside and downside moves following the earnings release. The upside offers a gain of around 3.5% for a test of resistance of $154.88. The downside risk is around 3.5-4%, which would see the price back at the support base. The support base has proven its resilience so far, hence, any negative earnings could really test its strength. However, a move above $154-$155 following the earnings would certainly ignite some momentum for investors, potentially leading to some gains for JNJ into the second half of the year. We can see that the technical indicators are on the positive end of the spectrum, but only marginally. It's likely that the indicators may even move into a more neutral position ahead of tomorrow.