The season started yesterday with ASB Bank but gets into full swing from tomorrow when Sky City Entertainment reports.
The NZX50 escaped the worst yesterday, following the lead of the United States markets which bounced back after taking a battering on Tuesday (New Zealand time).
Mr Timms said because New Zealand markets were closed on Waitangi Day, they missed the massive sell-off.
The market closed down 47 points at 8194. A2 Milk was down 2% as was its supplier Synlait.
The dollar rose against the US currency to US73.06c.
Asian sharemarkets found footing yesterday as some calm returned to Wall Street where major indices bounced into the black after days of deep losses.
''The markets were more subdued but whatever happens, all eyes will be on the US overnight. We will follow their lead.''
Mr Timms said distressed selling by leveraged funds looked to have run its course for now, allowing volatility to abate.
However, the prospect of monetary tightening across the globe remained a challenge for the long term.
US stocks rebounded yesterday in late afternoon trading following the biggest one-day drops for the Standard & Poor's 500 and the Dow in more than six years.
Stocks swung from negative to positive after starting the session 2% lower, underscoring a return of volatility to a market until recently notably missing major shifts, Mr Timms said.
''You have to remember a lot of selling and buying is now done by algorithms which are designed to sell and buy at pressure points. Once the fall started, it was hard to contain.''
Many of the forced sales from highly leveraged funds were caused by algorithmic trades. The selling cascaded through computer systems in a way almost beyond the mechanisms of human intervention.
However, the algorithms were written by humans and the most human traits of fear and greed were hard to remove even from technology, he said.
The moves in financial markets in recent days did not appear to reflect what was happening in the real economy.
While the former might be struggling to come to grips with a changing economic landscape, the latter was firing on all cylinders, Mr Timms said.
Economic activity looked to have started 2018 very strongly in many regions.
The performance in manufacturing index for Japan increased to 54.4 in January from 54 in December, the strongest since February 2014.
Europe continued to look exceptionally good with the composite PMI rising to 58.6 from 58.1, a near 12-year high.
Companies in Europe expanded their workforce numbers at the fastest rate since 2000, while input costs and selling prices had their biggest monthly increase since 2011.
In the US, economic data had also remained strong, Mr Timms said.
The global reporting season was about halfway through. It had started well and of the 260 S&P 500 companies to have reported so far, 80% had beaten earnings estimates.
The overall increase in earnings for the S&P 500 for the quarter was sitting at 12.4%, the strongest seen in nearly seven years.
For the first time since the third quarter of 2011, every S&P 500 sector was forecast to have earnings per share and revenue growth.
Financial markets were overreacting as they always did, he said.
''Financial markets have a tendency to overshoot on both the upside and the downside, while kneejerk reactions are common.''
While those could be disconcerting for new investors, it must be remembered asset classes like shares were ''excellent'' long-term investments, Mr Timms said.
But they could be volatile over shorter periods.
