Earnings on Tap Monday and Tuesday

Well the earnings beat goes on; a bit slower than the past 2 weeks but still a large volume coming this week. Not too much interesting the first 2 days this week...

Of note....

Monday
Activision (ATVI) - the video game maker with the momentum; I've mulled this one as an addition over the months, but have held off.

Quintana Maritime (QMAR) - this is one of the drybulk shippers; a few weeks ago they announced 'strategic alternatives' which at the time caused me to mention this might be signaling a near term top - i.e. smart people inside an industry usually look to sell out when the market gives some over the top valuations for a cyclical business.

Tuesday
Banco Bradesco (BBD) - one of the major Brazilian banks

Blue Nile (NILE) - until about 3 weeks ago it had been one of the momentum lemmings favorites, as a '2nd hand' play on the strength of Amazon.com (AMZN) - but in October it has suffered a terrible fall. This is a classic example of a stock where it appears "someone" knows "something" and the big boys got out and handed their shares to retail. If this proves true at earnings; this is the type of stuff the SEC should be looking at. I see this countless times every year. It is easy to be "smart money" when "someone whispers something" to you. Let's see how it plays out. The chart has turned into a disaster.

Cognizant Technology (CTSH) - one of the major Indian outsource plays. This was a massive runner in 2005, and 2006, but has been dead money for 2007.

Jacobs Engineering Group (JEC) - one of the fund's infrastructure plays; it's pricey but quite the company. It is possible one of these infrastructure stocks stumbles through a lumpy quarter and hopefully brings down prices across the group. Otherwise it will be hard to get better pricing to enter these stocks, short of a market meltdown. See results from Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI), and Shaw Group (SGR) of late to see how solid this industry is. KBR (KBR) was sold off post earnings last week, which I thought was incorrect, but it did not really push down the rest of the sector.

Papa Johns (PZZA) - pull up a 6 month chart, and your heart will sink. Ouch. Domino's Pizza (DPZ) has been a stinker too - food inflation stinks like that.

Peabody Energy (BTU) - fund position in the coal sector. While the other coal plays I focus on are domestic, Peabody (while having a lot of US exposure) has an inside road to China with its Australian exposure. So while I expected a lot of bad news from the other companies (which they delivered) but solid future guidance (which they delivered), Peabody Energy will probably have a little better current news and perhaps even better guidance than the others. If not, and there is a sell off, I'd be a happy buyer at lower prices.

Ruth Chris' Steakhouse (RUTH) - see what I said about Papa John's, pull up RUTH's 6 month chart, and repeat after me... I will avoid restaurants, I will avoid restaurants. (Although they are WELL overdue for some short term dead cat bounces) Talk about ugly charts. If the economy is so wonderful Paulnanke, why do these restaurant stocks (ex - Chipotle) look so Enron-ish?

Thestreet.com (TSCM) - Cramer's baby, and in fact of late been quite a good stock. I like the website, use it daily and think it's making some nice moves business wise.

Valero Energy (VLO) - the largest independent refiner. I am still mostly out of refiners but if crude would fall to mid to low $80s these could be good trades - I still prefer Frontier Oil (FTO) which is the only refiner I own, but in some scale. The Tesoro (TSO) bid might be a meaningful bottom for this group, in which many stocks have been in quite a free fall.