On Tap: Earnings From 117 S&P Companies

[Stocks-to-Watch]

A total of 117 Standard & Poor’s 500 companies report earnings the week of January 23, with a fair number of tech and energy names in the mix.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the heaviest reporting days.* On Monday, S&P names reporting include CSX (CSX), Halliburton (HAL), American Electric Power (AEP), Zions Bancorp (ZION), Texas Instruments (TXN) and Western Digital (WDC).

Based on analysts’ expectations for the companies issuing results next week, Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S expects to see positive earnings surprises from Regions Financial (RF), Apple (AAPL), Motorola Mobility Holdings (MMI), Legg Mason (LM) and Textron (TXT). According to Thomson’s weekly earnings report:

“Regions is expected to benefit from credit improvement and lower expense ratios. Meanwhile, analysts believe that Apple’s iPhone gained more market share than expected.”

Analysts are looking for negative surprises from MeadWestvaco (MWV), Noble (NE), Eqt (EQT), Murphy Oil (MUR) and AT&T (T).

“MeadWestvaco is being hurt by weak demand in Europe and North America in their consumer solutions group. Noble’s earnings may miss expectations due to additional required downtime within their rig fleet this quarter.”

Colleague Tiernan Ray will be covering tech names as usual on our Tech Trader Daily blog.



Original Article Source by Barrons.com