Sunday, April 18, 2004

Weekly Outlook

There are relatively few economic reports scheduled for release this week. However, there are a number of notable U.S. companies due to report earnings. Scheduled economic reports include Leading Indicators, Initial Jobless Claims, Continuing Claims and Durable Goods Orders. Leading Indicators and Durable Goods Orders are the most important releases this week.

3M(MMM), Fannie Mae(FNM), Lexmark(LXK), Altria(MO), General Motors(GM), Lucent(LU), Pfizer(PFE), Centex(CTX), General Dynamics(GD), Harrah's Entertainment(HET), eBay(EBAY), Qualcomm(QCOM), Starbucks(SBUX), American International Group(AIG), SAP AG(SAP), United Parcel Service(UPS), American Express(AXP), Amazon(AMZN), Nextel(NXTL), Broadcom(BRCM), Microsoft(MSFT) and Schlumberger (SLB) are some of the more important companies that release quarterly earnings this week. The SEMI Book-to-Bill, Greenspan's testimony to the Senate Banking Committee and the Fed's Broaddus speech on the economy also have market-moving potential.

BOTTOM LINE: Numerous corporate earnings reports on tap this week should continue to paint a very positive picture of the current state of the U.S. economy. However, many stocks have been dropping on great reports due to overriding inflation and war/terrorism fears. I expect the NASDAQ to drop further and the broad market to remain neutral to slightly lower in the short-run. I would like to see the Put/Call, Arms, VIX and Bullish % readings show less investor complacency. I expect this will occur this week.

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