Catalysts to Watch Tommorrow

Catalysts to Watch

· For-profit education - The ED data will be released on Friday afternoon. The ED stated that its backup data will include 1) a white paper on the ED’s modeling activity, 2) the ED’s master data tables (which include the ED’s repayment rate estimates, Missouri student data), 3) 4-year actual repayment rates for individual schools (not programs) adjusted for deferments and consolidations, and 4) other background data (Steinerman). 

· Video game sales figures due out after the close today 

Corporate Events Calendar

· Thurs Aug 12: earnings before the open (BR, WEN, BGG, THI, EL, EAT, SLE, KSS, Q-Cells, K+S, BUD, Aegon); earnings after the close (ADSK, DV, JWN, BYI, SHOR, NVDA)

· Fri Aug 13: earnings before the open (JCP, PBR, Hypo Real Estate) 

Economics Calendar – daily view

· Friday, Aug 13th: US (Retail Sales, CPI, U. of Michigan Confidence); Eurozone (German GDP, Eurozone GDP); Other (n/a).

Next Week

· Calendar of events to watch for week of Mon Aug 16 – the coming week will be relatively busy on the earnings front as we head into the heart of the mini Jul-end reporting period.  The mix of companies posting numbers will be concentrated in both tech and retail.  For the former, on back of the NVDApreannouncement and CSCO disappointment, results so far from the Jul-end companies haven’t been great and tech has been one of the weakest sectors in the whole market so far in August.  From the semis (the SOX is down ~6%+ in the month of Aug), people will be focused on ADI Tues night (given the weakness seen from PCs and comm., ADI’s industrial end markets will be watched closely) and MRVL Thurs night (will the co’s RIMM exposure offset softness from HDDs?).  From the OEMs, NTAP is Wed night and HPQ/DELL will both hit Thurs after the close (their commentary on the state of corporate demand will be closely watched after the CSCO remarks).  For the retailers, we get TJX/ANF/WMT/HD on Tues morning, TGT Wed morning, and SHLD Thurs morning (among others).  So far among the Jul-end retailers, #s have been mixed (M was received well while KSS disappointed).  Away from tech/retail, some other interesting earnings reports to keep an eye on: COCO (will be one of the first for-profit education companies to report since the recent DE rules were published) and DE (w/the spike in wheat prices and renewed interest in agriculture names, people will be watching to see if the company was seeing any impact (both COCO and DE report Wed morning).  Also in corporate America, CAT will be hosting an analyst meeting on Thurs.  Away from earnings/analyst meetings, the Treasury/White House is going to be hosting a large conference Tues (Aug 17) to explore the future of Fannie/Freddie and the US mortgage market.  Congress remains on recess, but Obama will be campaigning throughout a bunch of states ahead of the Nov mid-term elections.  Congress won’t come back into session until Sept and there is really only one major issue left for the year – the Bush tax cuts (the Senate has said it will consider the issue prior to the Nov mid-terms but a final solution for this overhang may come down to the last weeks of ’10 if the two sides remain far apart).  The Fed will start buying Treasuries on Tues (will be the first purchase under the FOMC’s recently announced MBS reinvestment program).  The eco calendar will be pretty quiet although we are going to get the first of the Aug eco releases (the Empire Manufacturing Survey is on Mon Aug 16 and Philadelphia is on Thurs Aug 19) and a bunch of housing #s (NAHB survey on Mon and starts/permits on Tues).