Earnings Preview: Ten Key Companies Reporting Next Week


Stocks were mixed on options expiration Friday.


After two key economic reports disappointed traders in the morning, Richmond
Federal Reserve President Alfred Broaddus said the Fed was “some distance” from
raising interest rates.


Michigan Sentiment for the month of April
was lower at 93.2 from the expected 97.0 and US industrial output fell -0.2%.
Capacity utilization was also lower at 76.5%. The Semiconductor Index
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traded down to its 200-day sma. IBM
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reported earnings that met
Wall Street consensus of $1.60 billion with revenue at $22.3 billion.

Nokia
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said its
profit margin will decline to 25.6% on increased competition and an eroding
market share. NOK reported a 16% drop in profit to $977.3 million with
second-quarter sales expected to remain flat to lower.

The Dow gained 0.10% for the
week; the S&P fell 0.4% and the Nasdaq lost 2.8%.

Over the next 2 weeks, more
than 60% of the companies in the S&P will report earnings and Thompson Financial
estimates that on average, first quarter earnings will rise 18.7% over last
year. First Call says that figure could be even higher, at 21 – 22%. Next week,
look for earnings from Charles Schwab
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(Monday, 0.12 est.),
Lucent

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(Tuesday 0.02 est.), General Motors
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(Tuesday 
$1.79 est.), Ford
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(Wednesday, 0.44 est.), Coca-Cola
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(Wednesday, 0.43 est.), Pfizer ]PFE|PFE] (Thursday, 0.51 est.),
American International

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(Thursday, $1.06 est.), Viacom
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(Thursday, 0.30 est.), Amazon.com
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(Thursday, 0.19 est.) and
Microsoft
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(Thursday, 0.29 est.).

Dow
+54.51

10451.97
S&P 500
+5.77
1134.61
Nasdaq -6.43
1995.74

The day’s leading sectors were
REITs

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+ 1.79%, Banks
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+1.38%,
Amex Gold Bugs

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+1.23%, and Biotechs
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+0.99%,

Weak today were Internet
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-3.48%, Disk Drives
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-2.88% and Semis
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-1.76%,

Economic news releases today
included higher housing starts at 2007K and increased building permits at 1946K.
Capacity utilization was lower at 76.5%, Michigan Sentiment dropped to 93.2 and
Industrial production turned negative at -0.2%.

10-year Notes were +145
at 111 120

The dollar
was -0.15 at 89.91

Gold was +0.88 at 400.44

Crude oil was -0.15 at
36.99

Volume was
1,493,061,000 on
the NYSE, and
1,872,251,000 on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth was mixed.

NYSE Issues
Advancing
2421 Up Vol 964
Declining 893 Down Vol 515
Ratio 2.71 1.87
Nasdaq
Advancing
1643 Up Vol 541
Declining
1533 Down Vol 1301
Ratio 1.07 2.40

Stocks in the news:

Sun Microsystems
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reported a third-quarter loss of 23 cents a share, with revenue down 5% to $2.65
billion. It was the 12th consecutive quarter of lower year-over-year revenue.

DoubleClick
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reported
earnings in line with consensus, earning $7.7 million with revenue at $68
million. The company guided lower expecting revenue to reach $72 million with
EPS of 6 cents.

Netflix
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traded lower
after reporting a $5.8 million on increased marketing expenses. Revenue rose to
$100.4, $0.9 million higher than the consensus.

Transmeta
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posted a
net-loss of $23.4 million on revenue that rose to $5.3 million. TMTA expects
next quarter earnings to be about 14 cents.

Brice Wightman

bricew@tradingmarkets.com