Market Insider: It's Here — One Ugly Earnings Season

Market Insider: It's Here — One Ugly Earnings Season

(Source: April 13th, 2009) CNBC, Patti Domm)
After a five-week rally, stocks face one of their toughest challenges yet - a very nasty earnings season.
In the coming week, dozens of companies report, including such major names as Goldman Sachs, Johnson and Johnson, Google, Intel, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and General Electric. For S&P 500 companies, first-quarter earnings are expected to decline nearly 38 percent.
There is also a full calendar of economic data such as retail sales, industrial production and inflation data.
Given the lack of earnings guidance this quarter, traders are debating whether earnings will be a positive or negative catalyst for stocks, since the opportunity for surprises is greater than in the past. Goldman Sachs says just 25 percent of the S&P 500 now give quarterly guidance.
"The divergence in consensus is the widest it's been," said Peter McCorry, who trades bank stocks at Keefe, Bruyette.

"I don't think we'll see the V-shaped turnaround in the market continue from here ... It will be more drawn out," said McCorry. "The volatility we have is no accident. Expectations are very varied right now. We're very emotional, headline driven, minute to minute."
http://www.cnbc.com/id/30144581