Earnings Ready to Rock 'n' Roll

ByABC News
October 9, 2000, 9:05 AM

Oct. 9 -- Just take a deep breath. Try not to panic. And for Petes sake relax.

Thats sound advice when a nearsighted, gum-chewing, ADD-plagued 15-year-old is driving the car and its going to be good advice this week, when some major league companies kick off earnings season.

If pre-earnings warnings are any indication, this could be a real doozy of a spell. Then again, with traders sending some of the bigger names lower and lower last week, the market may be pricing in its disappointment now.

Earnings Calendar Gathers Steam

Look for biotech giant Biogen, mobile-phoner Motorola, dot-com bellwether Yahoo! and blue-chipper International Paper to release on Tuesday.

Advanced Micro Designs headlines on Wednesday, with General Electric a yet-to-be-official possibility. But the real earnings mother lode comes on Thursday.

Well call it day one of Earningspalooza (multiple piercings are optional, tattoos and general gloom about the state of humanity are mandatory). DoubleClick, General Motors, Gateway, Juniper Networks, KLA-Tencor, Office Depot, RSA Security, Unisys and Veritas Software will all release after Thursdays bell rings to end the trading day.

On the economic news front, the bond market gets a Columbus Day/Yom Kippur breather today, while the stock market continues uninterrupted by the nonmarket holiday. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will be business as usual, with chain-store sales, a Treasury auction and initial jobless claims making the rounds.

Look for Friday the 13th to bring more than just dated, cliched references to hockey masks and machetes. The market will get its first peek at Septembers retail figures and producer price index. These figures are vital, especially now, when wonks and other future forecasters will be scrutinizing data to see if the economy is in a long-term slowdown or whether this is a temporary downturn.

Future Shock

Some people say if you dont know your past, then you dont know your future. Unfortunately, that means revisiting the most recent week, which was not good for Dow components and disastrous for Nasdaq composites. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost about 50 points in the past week of trading, while the Nasdaq Composite Index fell almost 300. Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and J.P. Morgan were notable Dow losers, while Yahoo!, Oracle and Dell rounded out the Nasdaqs we-got-hit parade.