The Fool Looks Ahead

Monday
The new trading week kicks off with Sohu.com (Nasdaq: SOHU  ) and Ctrip.com (Nasdaq: CTRP  ) reporting their second-quarter results.

The Chinese dot-com darlings are strong in their specialties. Ctrip is China's leading online travel website. Sohu watches over a popular portal and serves up a ton of display ads. Both companies are expected to post reasonable earnings growth.

Tuesday
GeoEye (Nasdaq: GEOY  ) takes satellite pictures from space and then sells the high-def terrain snapshots to mapping websites, oil drillers, and just about any company that can benefit from them. But GeoEye is also somewhat at the mercy of government contracts, and that perhaps explains why analysts are bracing for a flat to slightly lower showing.

Wednesday
Avis Budget (Nasdaq: CAR  ) pulls up for its quarterly report on Wednesday. Hearing the company's thoughts on the continuing consolidation in the auto-rental market should be as interesting as the financials themselves.

Thursday
Online jeweler Blue Nile (Nasdaq: NILE  ) and meter reader Pitney Bowes (NYSE: PBI  ) report on Thursday. Despite their very different specialties, both companies are targeted to post only modest bottom-line improvement for the latest quarter.

Friday
Friday's are usually ho-hum affairs in terms of corporate events, but those hungry for an earnings report can turn to Broadwind Energy (Nasdaq: BWEN  ) . The wind-turbine company should post a substantially narrower deficit than it did a year earlier.

Until next week, I remain,

Rick Munarriz