Caterpillar (CAT) Kicks off Busy Earnings Week

Investing in Stocks Markets
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Stocks are trying to shake off the cobwebs from last week’s rough batch of third-quarter earnings.

Markets declined about 2% on Friday after blue-chip companies such as McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) each reported earnings that whiffed on consensus Wall Street expectations.

This week is already off to a better start after Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) demonstrated considerable growth in this morning’s Q3 earnings report. The world’s largest maker of construction equipment saw profits rise 49% last quarter – a sign that the global economy strengthened.

However, Caterpillar lowered its full-year outlook by a couple billion dollars, and gave a more muted forecast for 2013 than analysts were expecting.  

The less-than-rosy outlook prevented CAT shares from climbing too high, as the stock only shot up less than a percentage point in early trading.

Still, after last week, any earnings growth qualifies as good news. If the rest of this week’s earnings reports are on par with Caterpillar’s, it will be an improvement over last week.

Here are some of the bigger names set to report earnings this week, starting with an after-market report today:

Monday

  • Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO)

Tuesday

  • Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX)
  • Xerox (NYSE: XRX)

Wednesday

  • AT&T (NASDAQ: T)
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY)
  • Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL)
  • US Airways (NYSE: LCC)
  • Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (NYSE: DPS)
  • Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA)

Thursday

  • Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)
  • Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN)
  • Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG)
  • Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S)
  • Altria (NYSE: MO)
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