During the last 20 years, I???ve experienced the gauntlet known as quarterly earnings season around 80 times. Let me tell you, it is not a fun few weeks each quarter when, in rapid-fire fashion, companies reveal their latest revenue and earnings results and issue their take on what lies ahead. Sometimes that outlook can be rosy, sometimes it can be downright dismal and other times it can be favorable, but still fall short of what Wall Street was expecting.
Such is the drama that has come to be earnings season. How frenetic can it be? I would argue that it can be pretty rough for the seasoned professional investor. Consider that this week more than 1,100 earnings reports will be hitting the tape - up from 393 last week - with more than 700 related webcasts. Add in some of the expected economic data - housing, durable orders and flash PMI readings for China, the euro zone and the United States - and it's bound to be a pressure cooker week. Oh, I almost forgot to mention any political issues that arise and, given the time of the year, any significant updates on the drought, rising oil prices and so on that we???ve been experiencing the last few weeks.
A lot of quantity and quality earnings on tap this week. I have to say, I have been through periods of difficult earnings, but this week in particular is going to be one of the roughest ones I have seen in some time. Aside from the sheer number of companies reporting their results, it is the companies themselves that are doing so this very overcrowded week - McDonald???s (MCD), Apple (AAPL), DuPont (DD), Paccar (PCAR), UPS (UPS), ARM Holdings (ARMH), Facebook (FB), Ford Motor (F), Lumber Liquidators (LL), PepsiCo (PEP), Qualcomm (QCOM), Ryland Group (RYL), Visa (V), Amazon.com (AMZN), Colgate-Palmolive (CL), Dow Chemical (DOW), Hershey (HSY), Starbucks (SBUX), Starwood Hotels (HOT), Stanley Black & Decker (SWK) and Weyerhaeuser (WY).
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