Sunday, October 16, 2005

Weekly Outlook

There are some important economic reports and many significant corporate earnings reports scheduled for release this week.

Economic reports for the week include:

Mon. - Empire Manufacturing
Tues. - Producer Price Index, Net Foreign Security Purchases and NAHB Housing Index
Wed. - Housing Starts, Fed’s Beige Book
Thur. - Initial Jobless Claims, Leading Indicators and Philly Fed.
Fri. - None of note

A few of the more noteworthy companies that release quarterly earnings this week are:

Mon. - Citigroup(C), General Motors(GM), IBM(IBM), Mattel(MAT), Novellus Systems(NVLS),Wachovia(WB)
Tues. - Fifth Third Banc(FITB), Freeport-McMoRan(FCX), Genzyme Corp.(GENZ), Intel Corp.(INTC), Johnson & Johnson(JNJ), Kraft Foods(KFT), Merrill Lynch(MER), Motorola(MOT), Ryland Group(RYL), Seagate Technology(STX), State Street(STT), Wells Fargo(WFC) and Yahoo! Inc.(YHOO)
Wed. - Abott Labs(ABT), Altria Group(MO), Amgen(AMGN), Bank of America(BAC), Eastman Kodak(EK), eBay Inc.(EBAY), Electronic Arts(ERTS), EMC Corp.(EMC), General Dynamics(GD), Juniper Networks(JNPR), MBNA Corp.(KRB), Office Depot(ODP), United Technologies(UTX)
Thur. - Allstate(ALL), Broadcom(BRCM), Coca-Cola(KO), Eli Lilly(LLY), Ford Motor(F), Google Inc.(GOOG), Ingersoll-Rand(IR), McDonald’s(MCD), Pfizer Inc.(PFE), SBC Communications(SBC), Scientific-Atlanta(SFA), Southwest Airlines(LUV), United Parcel Service(UPS), Whirlpool Corp.(WHR), Xilinx(XLNX)
Fri. - Amazon.com(AMZN), Caterpillar(CAT), Guidant Corp.(GDT), Maytag Corp.(MYG), Royal Caribbean(RCL), Schlumberger(SLB), Wyeth(WYE)

Other events that have market-moving potential this week include:

Mon. - Fed’s Greenspan speaks, Fed’s Santomero speaks
Tue. - Fed’s Ferguson speaks, Semi Book-to-Bill
Wed. - BIO InvestorForum, Fed’s Geithner speaks, Fed’s Kohn speaks, Fed’s Kohn speaks, Fed’s Pinalto speaks
Thur. - Fed’s Lacker speaks, Fed’s Poole speaks, BIO InvestorForum
Fri. - Fed’s Poole speaks

BOTTOM LINE: I expect US stocks to finish the week modestly higher on a bounce after recent losses. I continue to believe stocks will trade mixed-to-higher until closer to month’s end. Subsequently, I expect a strong year-end rally to begin, led by the technology, retail, biotech, I-Banking, restaurant, gaming and airline sectors as earnings exceed lowered expectations and the energy price downtrend accelerates. My trading indicators are still giving bearish signals and the Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the week.

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