Earnings season is kicking into high gear. Are you prepared?

Tech stocks, led by NFLX, GOOG and EBAY, and the banks delivered solid earnings last week lifting the US markets to a good week overall. AAPL is expected to report Tuesday after the bell. Other notable US earnings reports expected next week include: Haliburton, Yahoo, Microsoft, Illumina, Abbott Labs, Coca-Cola, General Motors, McDonalds, Starbucks, Amazon, Alaska Air and Biogen.

Canadian earnings season kicks into high gear next week with notables CNR, CP, WFT, CFP, CFX, L, MTL, XTC, AD, HSE, RCI.B, TCK.B, TFI and VRX reporting. Early reporting in Canada has been mixed with PJC.A and DWI missing estimates while MTY, and TH increased earnings. ATD.B missed estimates but earnings were up from one year ago.

Be Prepared – Create a WatchList. One of the best things you can do each weekend during earnings season is create a WatchList of familiar names set to report earnings each week. You might create a main Folder and call it, Earnings Calendar 2015. Then call your sub-folder, Earnings Week of July 20. Another sub-folder, Earnings Week of July 27. And so on. You can get your earnings calendar from your Broker site, however, I really like the calendar at www.tmxmoney.com. You just go to the Market Activity tab and select Earnings Calendar: TMX Earnings Calendar.

Click on the Company Name or Symbol to get more information about the stock including the website address. Click on More to get a history of Earnings results.

Finally, study those graphs. Use the VectorVest Simple graph layout or your own favourite layout, but especially look at VectorVest’s EPS, a forecasted 12-month leading indicator of earnings. Is EPS rising all the way to the right edge of the graph? If so, you can be more optimistic about current earnings. Just keep in mind that it’s generally more risky to buy a stock just before earnings. A stock might have good results, but if the market was expecting better, price could still fall. Usually though, especially longer term, solid earnings leads to improving price appreciation.

Tomorrow’s Q&A Webinar. For more investing preparation and knowledge, be sure to watch Friday’s SOTW Special Presentation. It was all about getting the most educational value from the updated Welcome tab including 3 interactive Getting Started Lessons, the Successful Investing Course (five videos), and a Calendar to set your appointment with a Senior Instructor for getting started help or just a refresher. We’ll cover all of the above and see how the market is starting the week in Realtime during our weekly SOTW Q&A webcast, tomorrow (Monday) at 12:30 ET. Register Here

Crude Oil Report: While earnings is kicking in to high gear, Wednesday’s Crude Oil Inventories report at 10:30 a.m. will attract a lot of attention, especially in light of crude’s 3.9% drop last week. Thursday is the unemployment claims report and New Home Sales reports Friday.

DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this Blog is for education and information purposes only. Example trades should not be considered as recommendations. There are risks involved in investing and only you know your financial situation, risk tolerance, financial goals and time horizon.

Presented by Stan Heller, Consultant, VectorVest Canada