Bernanke to Follow Eurozone Vote

Earnings Preview – Week of June 18th

This Sunday’s Greek election will likely have a lot of bearing on the week’s trading action. But we also have the FOMC meeting during the week and the Bernanke press event afterwards, where the expectation is for some positive news (read: more QE) from the central bank. The G-20 meeting in Mexico may result in a lot of exhortations for Germany to do more, but nothing concrete may come out of it.

If anything has kept the market in good cheer in recent days -- despite all the negative headlines coming out of Europe -- it is these hopes that the Fed will come through this week with a helping hand. Greece and the Fed aside, we have a number of key housing industry reports on the docket, ranging from homebuilder sentiment to Starts and Existing Home sales.

We are still some days away from what is generally considered the start of the earnings season when aluminum producer Alcoa (AA) reports results. But we ‘officially’ count all companies that have financial quarters ending in May as part of our second quarter results tally. And many of these companies are starting to come out with results this week. We have a total of 32 companies reporting results in the week, including 12 companies from the S&P 500. The list of companies reporting this week includes a few bellwether names like FedEx (FDX) and Oracle (ORCL).


Monday - 6/18

• The market’s primary driver this morning will be the result of Greek election, which will likely drown out the June Home Builders’ Index coming out in the morning. We may have a coordinated central bank liquidity action should the Greek vote result come out unfavorable.
• The two-day G-20 summit meeting gets underway in the Mexican resort town of Los Cabos. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has been making some noise ahead of the meeting, likely in an effort to preempt pressure from world leaders to ‘do more.’
• The Home Builder Index, which basically reflects builder sentiment, reached a multi-year high in May, but is expected to moderately pull back this month.

Tuesday - 6/19

• We will get the May Housing Starts data in the morning. We got a strong reading on the Starts and Permits front last month and the expectation is for Starts to increase to 725K level in May.
• We will get earnings results from Discover Financial (DFS), FedEx (FDX) and Carnival Corp (CCL) before the market opens.

Wednesday - 6/20

The Fed will be in the spotlight today, as the FOMC comes out with its official statement around noon and then Bernanke will hold his press conference. Expectations are quite high that the Fed will come out with more QE, though many doubt the utility of more Fed support to the economy when interest rates are already so low.
We will get results from Micron Technology (MU), Red Hat (RHT) and Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY) – all three reporting after the market’s close.

Thursday - 6/21

• We will get weekly Jobless Claims before the market opens, while the June Philly Fed, May Existing Home sales and May Leading Indicators reports come out a little later.
• Weekly Jobless Claims increased last week above the 380K level and have remained stubbornly in that vicinity for a number of weeks now.
• Oracle (ORCL) will report after the close, while Rite Aid (RAD) and ConAgra Foods (CAG) will report in the morning.

Friday - 6/22
No major economic report coming out today.
Darden Restaurants (DRI), the operator of Red Lobster and Olive Garden, will report results in the morning.

Here is a list of the companies reporting this week:

Company	Ticker	1Q-12E	1Q-11A	Last EPS Surprise %	Report Day	Time
IHS INC-A	IHS	0.64	0.64	-15.69	Monday	AMC
DISCOVER FIN SV	DFS	0.96	1.09	28.26	Tuesday	BTO
FEDEX CORP	FDX	1.92	1.75	13.97	Tuesday	BTO
CARNIVAL CORP	CCL	0.08	0.26	200	Tuesday	BTO
JEFFERIES GP-NW	JEF	0.29	0.39	14.29	Tuesday	BTO
BARNES & NOBLE	BKS	-0.95	-1.04	-18.39	Tuesday	BTO
LDK SOLAR CO	LDK	-1.14	0.95	-41.67	Tuesday	BTO
WILEY (JOHN) A	JW.A	0.73	0.46	-3.19	Tuesday	BTO
ADOBE SYSTEMS	ADBE	0.48	0.4	-8.7	Tuesday	AMC
JABIL CIRCUIT	JBL	0.56	0.49	-2.04	Tuesday	AMC
CASELLA WASTE	CWST	-0.38	-0.85	-12	Tuesday	AMC
FSI INTL	FSII	0.21	0.1	80	Tuesday	AMC
LA-Z-BOY INC	LZB	0.26	0.24	5.56	Tuesday	AMC
MITEL NETWORKS	MITL	0.23	0.17	5.26	Tuesday	AMC
JDA SOFTWARE GP	JDAS	0.39	0.32	8.93	Tuesday	AMC
ACTUANT CORP	ATU	0.59	0.51	16.22	Wednesday	BTO
JINKOSOLAR HLDG	JKS	-1.12	2.1	-366.07	Wednesday	BTO
CROWN CRAFTS	CRWS	0.2	0.17	33.33	Wednesday	BTO
LE GAGA HLD-ADR	GAGA	0.16	0.12	150	Wednesday	BTO
MICRON TECH	MU	-0.19	0.09	-38.89	Wednesday	AMC
BED BATH&BEYOND	BBBY	0.84	0.72	11.28	Wednesday	AMC
RED HAT INC	RHT	0.19	0.18	0	Wednesday	AMC
SONIC CORP	SONC	0.22	0.21	50	Wednesday	AMC
CLARCOR INC	CLC	0.7	0.64	-2.13	Wednesday	AMC
STEELCASE INC	SCS	0.13	0.1	-12.5	Wednesday	AMC
APOGEE ENTRPRS	APOG	0.03	-0.08	57.14	Wednesday	AMC
CARMAX GP (CC)	KMX	0.53	0.55	2.5	Thursday	BTO
CONAGRA FOODS	CAG	0.5	0.47	4.08	Thursday	BTO
RITE AID CORP	RAD	-0.03	-0.06	-41.67	Thursday	BTO
ORACLE CORP	ORCL	0.76	0.73	7.41	Thursday	AMC
SABA SOFTWARE	SABA	0.01	-0.13	0	Thursday	AMC
DARDEN RESTRNT	DRI	1.16	1	0.81	Friday	BTO