Weekly Outlook

There are a number of important economic reports and significant corporate earnings reports scheduled for release this week. Economic reports include Net Foreign Security Purchases(Mon.), Housing Market Index(Mon.), Consumer Price Index(Tues.), CPI Ex Food & Energy(Tues.), Housing Starts(Tues.), Building Permits(Tues.), Initial Jobless Claims(Thur.), Continuing Claims(Thur.), Leading Indicators(Thur.) and Philly Fed.(Thur.). The CPI, Housing Starts, Jobless Claims, Leading Indicators and Philly Fed. all have market-moving potential.

Intl. Business Machines(IBM-Mon.), Lexmark Intl.(LXK-Mon.), Texas Instruments(TXN-Mon.), 3M(MMM-Mon.), Altria(MO-Tues.), Electronic Arts(ERTS-Tues.), Motorola(MOT-Tues.), Taser Intl.(TASR-Tues.), Boston Scientific(BSX-Tue.), McDonald's(MCD-Tues.), JP Morgan(JPM-Wed.), EBay(EBAY-Wed.), Harrah's Entertainment(HET-Wed.), Honeywell(HON-Wed.), United Technologies(UTX-Wed.), Microsoft(MSFT-Thur.), SBC Communications(SBC-Thur.), Caterpillar(CAT-Thur.), Merck(MRK-Thur.), American Intl. Group(AIG-Thur.), Coca Kola(KO-Thur.) and Amazon(AMZN-Fri.) are some of the more important companies that release quarterly earnings this week. There are also some other events that have market-moving potential. The Semi Book-to-Bill report(Mon.), Fed's Poole speaking(Tues.), Fed's Greenspan speaking(Tues.), Fed's Poole speaking(Thur.) could also impact trading this week.

Bottom Line: I expect U.S. stocks to finish the week mixed-to-weaker as worries over earnings, energy prices, lawsuits and politics offset diminishing domestic terrorism fears, optimism over future economic growth and an improvement of the big picture in Iraq. I continue to believe the major indices are consolidating recent gains before another more significant move higher, beginning within the next 10 days. Oil above $60/bbl., a major terrorist attack or a delay in the outcome of the Presidential election would change my positive view for this quarter. My short-term trading indicators are giving mixed signals and the Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the week.