Weekly Outlook

There are some important economic reports and a number of significant corporate earnings reports scheduled for release this week. Economic reports include (Tues.)-Consumer Confidence, Existing Home Sales (Thur.)-Durable Goods Orders, Initial Jobless Claims (Fri.)-Advance 4Q GDP, Personal Consumption. Existing Home Sales, GDP and Personal Consumption all have market-moving potential.

Mon.- Altera(ALTR), American Express(AXP), Lexmark International(LXK) Tues.- Bellsouth(BLS), Coach Inc.(COH), Computer Associates(CA), Corning Inc.(GLW), Electronic Arts(ERTS), EMC Corp.(EMC), Flextronics(FLEX), Johnson & Johnson(JNJ), Merck & Co.(MRK), Merrill Lynch(MER), Schlumberger(SLB), Texas Instruments(TXN) Wed.- Altria(MO), E*Trade(ET), Eastman Kodak(EK), General Dynamics(GD), SBC Communications(SBC), Starbucks(SBUX) Thur.- Amgen(AMGN), Beazer Homes(BZH), Du Pont(DD), Broadcom(BRCM), Caterpillar(CAT), Guidant(GDT), Lockheed Martin(LMT), Microsoft(MSFT), Novellus Systems(NVLS), Phelps Dodge(PD), UPS(UPS), Verizon Communications(VZ) Fri. - ChevronTexaco(CVX), Proter & Gamble(PG), Halliburton(HAL), McDonald's(MCD) are some of the more important companies that release quarterly earnings this week. There are also a few other events that have market-moving potential. The Fed's Guynn speaking(Mon.), Piper Jaffray Health Care Conference(Tues.-Thur.), Fed's Hoenig speaking(Tues.) and Citi SmithBarney Financial Services Conference(Wed.-Thur.) could also impact trading this week.

Bottom Line: I expect US stocks to finish the week modestly lower on worries over terrorism associated with the Iraqi election, high energy prices and slowing global growth. US equities should put in a tradable bottom this week as measures of investor anxiety rise and the major indices reach very oversold technical levels short-term. I plan to remain nimble and look to add market exposure into any further deterioration. My short-term trading indicators are still giving Sell signals and the Portfolio is market neutral heading into the week.