4 Questions That Need to Be Answered Next Week

Next week is going to be the meaty center of this past quarter's earnings season. Plenty of prolific darlings and laggards will be holding conference calls to go over their financials, ideally addressing any pressing questions and concerns.

I'll save you a little digging by going into the four questions that I believe are relevant when it comes to next week's crop of quarterly reports.

After I'm done, feel free to add a few of your own in the comments box at the bottom.

Let's go.

1. How is the Kindle holding up against the iPad?
Both Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL  ) and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN  ) are reporting next week, so it will be a great time to discuss the effect that the evolutionary iPad has had on the once revolutionary Kindle.

Apple introduced the iPad at the beginning of the quarter, and the gadget's been selling briskly ever since. Every passing month finds Apple putting out a press release to boast about another millionth milestone. We're now up to 3 million iPads sold -- and it wouldn't be a surprise to hear the 4 million number come up during next Tuesday's release.

Amazon, on the other hand, has been tightlipped about its Kindle. The e-book reader has been on the market for nearly three years, and the leading online retailer has never divulged actual sales metrics.

The only nugget that investors got was earlier this year, when Amazon conceded that "millions of people now own Kindles" during its holiday quarter earnings release. Is that 2 million? 3 million? Less than 2 million, if we're including different people living in the same house with a Kindle?

After a dramatic price cut last month, it's time for Amazon to put out some real numbers against the more forthcoming Apple.

2. Is Capital One loosening its credit standards?
There's a scorching report in this morning's Wall Street Journal, detailing how risky lending is starting to creep back in this country. The article leads with a 66-year-old retiree, living on limited income and with more than $33,000 in debt before filing for bankruptcy last month. Just before her personal filing, Capital One (NYSE: COF  ) was offering her even more plastic, even though it had sued her four years ago to recover an unpaid debt.

Capital One isn't the only company singled out in this morning's article, but it just happens to be presenting its quarterly results next Thursday. You can be sure that analysts will be combing through the report even more carefully now, and it wouldn't be a shocker to hear one of them bring up the story to see if the credit card issuer is truly relaxing its standards.

Did we not learn a thing during the recent financial meltdown?

3. Will the real Yahoo! please stand up?
Over the past few months, we've been tantalized with reports from web traffic tracker comScore, detailing how Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO  ) and Bing have been gobbling away market share at Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG  ) expense.

If it doesn't seem entirely real, welcome to the world of smoke and mirrors. Yahoo! and Bing have been accused of padding their landing pages with search queries disguised as contextual links and graphical slideshows where comScore is counting every click as a search query.

Is the onus on the traffic trackers to fix the alleged gaming, or on the search engines to stop? It doesn't matter. Financials don't lie. By comScore standards, Google has been losing market share for months. It reports tonight.

Yahoo! steps up next Tuesday, giving investors the ability to compare the growth at one company against the other. The quarterly pitting has historically made Yahoo! look like a laggard, but we'll soon know the truth.

4. Is there going to be more consolidation in the discount brokerage industry?
E*TRADE (Nasdaq: ETFC  ) and TD AMERITRADE (Nasdaq: AMTD  ) report next week. The companies report trading trends on a monthly basis, so there isn't typically a lot left to the imagination when they host their quarterly calls beyond a little near-term visibility.

However, rumors of TD AMERITRADE buying E*TRADE have been circulating for years. As E*TRADE distances itself from its iffy lending practices and its financial performance improves -- it's expected to post its narrowest deficit in three years next Thursday -- it becomes a more feasible buyout target.

The brokerage industry can also use a little consolidation as the remaining players find themselves squeezing margins through subsidized investing vehicles and slashing commission schedules.

The consolidation question will probably come up in one or the other conference call.

Will either company be brave enough to answer?

Given the busy slate of earnings reports next week, do you have questions that you would like to see answered? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.