There's never a dull week on Wall Street. Let's go over some of the news that will shape the week to come.
Monday
The market kicks off the new trading week with SolarCity (SCTY.DL) reporting. The Elon Musk-fronted installer of solar energy solutions has turned heads with its financing model that translates roughly into having customers pay what they are saving in traditional utility costs.
SolarCity isn't profitable, and it's still a couple of years away from turning that corner. However, it's hard to deny the company's growing popularity. Analysts see SolarCity's quarterly revenue soaring 70% in Monday's report.
Tuesday
Ariad Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARIA) checks in on Tuesday afternoon. Biotechs are volatile, but Ariad pretty much takes the cake. Over the past year, the stock has traded as low as $2.15 and as high as $23. A lot of the rockiness took place late last year, when the FDA temporarily pulled its leukemia drug Iclusig off the market.
Ariad made waves on Friday, when it added a pair of activist investors to its board. Last month it spiked after a report in London's Daily Mail played the biotech up as an acquisition target. There's never a dull moment at Ariad.
Wednesday
Baidu (BIDU 1.49%) reports on Wednesday, and China's leading search engine is expected to post another quarter of accelerating revenue growth.
The market turned its back on Baidu during the first half of last year, fearing that it was losing market share to an upstart search platform and lacking a presence outside its desktop stronghold. Baidu silenced the skeptics by posting healthy top-line growth and snapping up China's leading mobile apps marketplace provider.
Thursday
Best Buy (BBY 2.80%) has already let us know that it was a lousy holiday quarter. Its publicly traded consumer-electronics retailing peers have done the same. The news turned one of last year's most surprising market winners into one of this year's biggest losers.
Best Buy has surrendered more than a third of its value in 2014, and the key to Thursday's quarterly report will be its outlook.
Friday
The final trading day of the week is typically quiet, but not this time around, with 3D Systems (DDD 1.97%) reporting. There's plenty of buzz when it comes to 3-D printing, but there's also a fair amount of skepticism from naysayers arguing that the leading players have appreciated too much for a technology that has yet to catch on with mainstream audiences.
Analysts see a decline in profitability in Friday morning's report, but they also see revenue soaring 53% for the quarter.
Let's look at a big trend that will grow beyond the week ahead
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