7 Reasons to Worry About Next Week

And -- just like that -- year-to-date market returns are negative again for 2011.

The market was already in a foul mood before yesterday's plunge, but it's not just global turmoil and country credit ratings that are upsetting investors.

There are still plenty of companies posting lower earnings than they did a year ago. Let's go over a few of the names that are expected to go the wrong way on the bottom line next week.

Source: Thomson Reuters.

Clearing the table
There will likely be more companies posting lower earnings next week, but these are just a few of the names that really jump out at me.

Take-Two Interactive rolled out Duke Nukem Forever in June. Finally! The raunchy shooter has been in development since the 1990s! Unfortunately for Take-Two, it wasn't worth the wait. Reviewers largely torched the game. Take-Two's larger rivals have come through with better-than-expected results this earnings season, but that may not be enough to save Take-Two this time around.

AOL has been struggling as an access provider for years, but lately it's also been slipping as an online advertiser. It's been trying to build itself back up by growing in booming areas including Groupon-esque daily deals and hyperlocal news sites with content that is sourced cheaply. It may not be enough to turn back the clock all the way to AOL's prime, but it's a start.

Cree is a maker of LED lighting materials. Despite the growing popularity of LED over incandescent lighting, analysts see Cree earning half as much as it did a year earlier.

KIT digital is a Prague-based company that helps media companies manage their digital assets. This also seems like a booming industry, but the pros are banking on KIT's deficit widening in next week's report.

Orbitz Worldwide is, at times, a forgotten online travel portal. It's been trading in the single digits since the end of 2007. Travelers continue to replace real world travel agents with convenient websites, but Orbitz will have to start moving its bottom line in the right direction if it wants to hop on a flight back to the double digits.

Cisco is a mess, but you didn't need me to tell you that. Whether it's last month's decision to lay off 6,500 employees or its move earlier this year to back out of some of its consumer businesses, Cisco isn't doing well. It used to be a market bellwether, selling networking switches and routers at healthy markups, but the competition is fierce these days.

Finally, we have QuinStreet doing a little jaywalking. QuinStreet went public a couple of years ago as a deep marketer. It would create rich verticals, attracting websites that would generate vetted leads for financial services companies and for-profit post-secondary educators. Sadly, those markets have been hammered lately. Crummy student loan repayment rates are crimping investor enthusiasm and enrollment rates at online colleges, and we all know what happened to the financial markets. QuinStreet already hosed down its guidance in June. Wednesday's report should be a mere formality confirming the gloom.

Why the long face, short-seller?
These seven companies have seen better days. The market has rewarded many of these stocks with reasonable gains over the past year, but they still haven't earned those upticks.

The good news here is that Wall Street already expects these companies to deliver shrinking bottom lines. In other words, the bad news is already baked into the shares.

The more I think about it, the less worried I become.