The Fool's Look Ahead

Monday
The markets are closed for Presidents Day. Rest up, because we're in the middle of earnings season. In other words, the next four trading days will be loaded.

Tuesday
In a busy day, Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), and Crocs (Nasdaq: CROX) will go over their holiday quarters. Is Wal-Mart as recession-proof as it thinks? Will HP continue to beat expectations under CEO Mark Hurd? Did Crocs lick its inventory overhang?

You'll have to wait until Tuesday for those answers, but it's encouraging that companies like HP and Crocs have beaten analyst profit targets for several quarters in a row now. I'm bullish there.

Wednesday
Wall Street will turn to Garmin (Nasdaq: GRMN) for direction. The market expects earnings to climb 26% to $1.10 a share in the company's latest quarter. Investors grew concerned earlier this month, when SiRF (Nasdaq: SIRF) -- a chip supplier for Garmin -- posted lackluster results. Will SiRF's weakness foreshadow a bum quarter at Garmin? The GPS giant has rattled off four straight quarters of market-thumping results.

Thursday
The9 (Nasdaq: NCTY) reports. No, not last year's failed ABC drama series. The9 is an online gaming company, best known for handing the popular World of Warcraft's rollout in China.

Things haven't been going too well for The9 lately. Analysts see earnings per share falling by more than 50% for the quarter.

Friday
It's time to work up a sweat heading into the weekend with Life Time Fitness (NYSE: LTM). The operator of trendy gyms is rolling, and this is always the time of year when memberships bump higher as "lose weight" and "get in shape" seem to bubble up to the top of resolutions.

Life Time has pulled off a dozen consecutive quarters of posting results that bested expectations. That's quite the workout, but let's wait to see how the company is holding up, now that the economy is a little bleaker and gym dues may be harder to come by.

Until next week, I remain,

Rick Munarriz