Flood of Quarterly Earnings Reports Continues, Picks Up Speed

Last week, numerous companies issued earnings reports for the third quarter, and even more reports will be issued this week.

We have already posted analyses of the financial statements published by Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), and PepsiCo, (NYSE: PEP). Check here, here, and here for the details.

The Wall Street Journal has reported, based on Thomson Reuters research, that a majority of the S&P 500 index constituents that have already reported earnings have announced figures higher than consensus analyst estimates.

Well-known companies scheduled to report earnings during the week of 20 October include: 3M (NYSE: MMM), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), American Express (NYSE: AXP), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), AT&T (NYSE: T), Boeing (NYSE: BA), ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), McDonalds (NYSE: MCD), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS), Wachovia (NYSE: WB), Xerox (NYSE: XRX), and Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO).

We previously posted third-quarter "look-aheads" for ConocoPhillips (see this and this) and Microsoft (and this). When these two companies release actual earnings, we will compare each Income Statement with our baseline and update the respective GCFR gauges.

We continue to hope that earning reports will give investors a more rationale basis for trading than has been seen recently.