Sunday, June 20, 2004

Weekly Outlook

There are several important economic reports and a few significant corporate earnings reports scheduled for release this week. Economic reports this week include Durable Goods Orders, Initial Jobless Claims, New Home Sales, Help Wanted Index, Final 1Q GDP, Final Univ. of Mich. Consumer Confidence and Existing Home Sales. Durable Goods Orders and Home Sales both have market-moving potential.

Walgreen(WAG), Goldman Sachs(GS), Morgan Stanley(MWD), FedEx(FDX), Goodyear Tire(GT), Bed, Bath & Beyond(BBBY), Omnivision Technologies(OVTI), Apollo Group(APOL), Paychex(PAYX), Micron Technology(MU), Nike(NKE) and RiteAid(RAD) are some of the more important companies that release quarterly earnings this week. There are also a couple of other events that have market-moving potential. The Bank of America Auto Conference and a speech by the Fed's Santomero could also impact trading this week.

Bottom Line: I expect U.S. stocks to trade neutral-to-higher this week on short-covering and strong corporate earnings reports. It is good to see the AAII % Bulls fell substantially last week following the spike the preceding week. While I think U.S. stocks will move quietly higher this week, I am not ruling out an outsized move in either direction ahead of many market-moving events the following week. My short-term trading indicators are still giving mixed signals and the Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the week.

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