After the most volatile week markets have seen in years, investors will look to a slew of company earnings from major corporations this coming week to settle nerves — but will the companies involved produce the positive outlook that traders are looking for?
Roughly 20 per cent of the firms in the S&P 500 report earnings this coming week — companies reporting include Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon.com, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Caterpillar, General Motors and Ford Motor.
Last week, the S&P 500 fell for the fourth successive week amid concerns about a slowdown in the global economy, a European debt crisis that refuses to go away, and the Ebola virus.
Things got so jittery — with a global slowdown causing expectations of inflation to fall too low — that St. Louis Fed president James Bullard said that perhaps the Federal Reserve should consider delaying the end of its bond buying stimulus program.
With an eye on global demand, investors will fret over big economic news from China on Tuesday when, among other things, an update could show that China’s third quarter economic growth fell to the slowest pace since 1999.
U.S. existing home sales on Tuesday and consumer price data on Wednesday will also be watched closely.
Companies reporting earnings this coming week include Apple, Chipotle and IBM on Monday; Verizon, Yahoo, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s on Tuesday; AT&T, Boeing and Northrup Grumman on Wednesday; Microsoft, Amazon, Caterpillar, Comcast and General Motors on Thursday; and UPS, Ford Motor, Colgate-Palmolive and Procter & Gamble on Friday.
