Earnings Preview Thursday

Don't have time (or energy) to do a full run down of tomorrow but looking at the names I cited for today, F5 Networks (FFIV) is ramping +20% in afterhours but it seems to be up more due to a share buyback than results, Ebay (EBAY) good earnings but not good enough guidance (sounds familiar), United Technologies (UTX) continues to kick it - a great industrial boring name, US slowing, int'l strong ....

May I point out a few words from UTX, just because I am sick of hearing the opposite on a daily basis from fear mongerers?

United Technologies executives sounded confident that the global infrastructure build-out was on track. In other words, skyscrapers relying on Otis elevators would keep rising over Chinese cities at a rapid rate.

"The trends that are driving growth in Asia do not look to slow down in the near term," Hayes said, pointing to 17 million people per year in China migrating from farms to factories.

"Urbanization is a powerful force, and it is what has been driving the business really for the last five years," both sales of Otis' elevators, Carrier's air conditioning equipment, and aerospace, where India and China are putting in record aircraft orders. "So, Asia looks to remain solid," he says.

So again, less farmers in the world, more city dwellers. Agriculture and Infrastructure. Short of pushing people back into rural villages I am not clear how this slowdown thesis works. (and yes China GDP could drop in half or 2/3 but the same trend remains)

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Tomorrow, we have a lot of big names

AT&T (T) - they kicked us off a few weeks ago with the blip about the "slowdown" in consumer so let's say if they give a better update.

Broadcom (BRCM) - former fund holding and chip name...

Danaher (DHR) - see United Technologies (UTX)

Juniper Networks (JNPR) - former fund holding and networking name....

MEMC Electronics (WFR) - solar supplier

Microsoft (MSFT) - big, steady, no super expectations like an Apple (AAPL) - just what we need

Nokia (NOK) - the best in cell phones

Potash (POT) - fund holding - expect repeat of Mosaic (MOS)

Sunpower (SPWR) - one of the "big 3" solar names - will be checking out gross margins closely

That's all that really concerns me one way or the other - so we have 1 holding reporting in fertilizer but 2 names that can affect the solar stocks and a few bellweathers in tech, MSFT and NOK; 2 quality international companies.

We had a nice reversal to end the day, the type of signal many were waiting for so let's hope the bandwagon starts getting filled. I'd like to release some of these long positions into a nice few week rally, and raise some cash and new short positions. Hopefully the market can start playing along.

Long Potash in fund and in personal account