The Fool's Look Ahead

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz | More Articles
January 2, 2010 | Comments (2)

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Monday
The brand new trading year begins. After a robust 2009, mutual fund managers will be happy to begin touting what should be positive results for the trailing 12 months for a change. Things should be quiet on the trading front, with only a couple of foreign companies and Ark Restaurants reporting their quarterly results.

Tuesday
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG ) has scheduled a media event. It's being pitched as an Android gathering, but everyone knows that this is the day when Big G breaks out its Nexus One smartphone.

There have been several Android-based phones released in recent months, but this is the first one that finds Google with greater control over the device. According to Gizmodo, T-Mobile will be the carrier, but Google is front and center on this one.

Wednesday
Three S&P 500 companies -- Bed Bath & Beyond (Nasdaq: BBBY ) , Monsanto (NYSE: MON ) , and Family Dollar (NYSE: FDO ) -- step up with their quarterly reports. There is little that a home goods retailer, an agricultural titan, and a thrifty-minded discounter have in common, but all three releases should combine to provide a decent glimpse of the economy in general.

As it stands, analysts see all but Monsanto posting year-over-year improvement on the bottom line.

Thursday
It will be showtime at Apollo (Nasdaq: APOL ) , as the poster child for Web-based post-secondary education delivers its quarterly numbers. Wall Street expects a profit of $1.45 a share for its latest quarter, well ahead of the $1.12 a share it rang up a year ago.

Another report that bears watching is from indexing specialist MSCI (NYSE: MXB ) , which provides institutional investing tools. The pros also see a healthy bottom-line boost there.

Friday
The first trading week of 2010 should end quietly. One of the few stateside companies discussing their quarterly performance is Colorado-based Penford (Nasdaq: PENX ) . The maker of ingredient systems for food and industrial applications should post a small profit, reversing a loss during the same period a year ago.

Until next week, I remain,

Rick Munarriz

The Steve Jobs Betrayal
You may already know that in the final year of his life, Jobs revealed a stunning betrayal — and told his biographer, "I will spend my last dying breath... and every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong." What was it that made Jobs so irate — and why could it make a few in-the-know investors some major profits over the coming months and years?

Enter your email address below to find out what made Jobs so enraged!

Google is a Motley Fool Rule Breakers pick. Bed Bath & Beyond is a Stock Advisor recommendation. Apollo Group and Monsanto are Inside Value recommendations. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz recommends windshield wiper fluid when trying to look forward. He owns no shares in any of the companies in this story and is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.

Read/Post Comments (2) | Recommend This Article (3)

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Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

Report this Comment On January 02, 2010, at 4:53 PM, PSU69 wrote:

Long on GOOG and involved in SEO/SEM programs with clients, I am anxious to see the outcome of this Google meeting. Phones for many around the planet are now small computers. I may move from BlackBerry to Android if I see enough review depth. I also own AAPL yet did not go iPhone when I bought the new BB last January due to ATT coverage issues in my primary market. Suggestion...write more about the phones and related investor issues. With 350,000,000 Facebook members, having a phone that quickly syncs with social media may lead to market shifts giving certain designs and carriers investment chops.
Report this Comment On January 05, 2010, at 10:15 AM, 5669al wrote:

Get into cash: what to what?

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