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

CNBC Market Insider: Jobs Report 'Is Going to Be Pretty Ugly'

Market Insider: Jobs Report 'Is Going to Be Pretty Ugly'
October's employment report is scheduled for release at 8:30 am EST. The consensus is for a loss of 200,000 non-farm payrolls, but some economists are ratcheting up their estimates to a decline of as many as 300,000 jobs.
"It's going to be pretty ugly," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "The ISM surveys were very negative. The employment questions were very, very negative. It feels like it could go to 300,000 plus."