Will the market find its groove in time to kick off a winning fourth quarter? We'll find out soon in a week filled with sugar water, spice, and everything nice.
Monday
Pharmacy chain Walgreen (NYSE:WAG) will post its fiscal fourth-quarter results today. Will it be a name brand or generic showing? Many drugstores have had a rough run as supermarkets and discount department store titans such as Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) continue to woo new prescriptions. Walgreen has been able to rise above it, providing welcome bottom-line consistency along the way. It earned $0.99 two years ago. It earned $1.09 last year. It is looking to earn $1.30 here in fiscal 2004. Those might be little steps, but as long as they are moving in the right direction, that picture of health is just what the doctor ordered.
Tuesday
September's Consumer Confidence figures will be released today. With the Fed hiking interest rates a few days ago one would expect that this gauge should hold up rather well as it measures the country's financial sentiment and its impact on consumer spending habits.
Wednesday
McCormick & Company (NYSE:MKC) would like to spice up your life. Don't pucker your lips, though. McCormick is the world's largest food spice maker. What? With a name like that you were expecting a law firm? Hoping to sprinkle a dash of good news into its seasonal third-quarter report, the company posted sales of $2.3 billion last year.
Thursday
Four years ago, Concord Camera (NASDAQ:LENS) was making a mint selling disposable cameras. Then digital cameras and gravity dealt the company a hard blow. Things haven't gotten better for the company as its shares have become as disposable as its cameras. Earlier this month it warned that it was delaying its annual report because of the departure of its CFO and the impact of Florida's hurricanes. The only problem is that this company is in Hollywood, Fla., a city just north of Miami that was spared the worst of Charley, Frances, and Ivan. I guess a satellite picture is worth a thousand words, but we'll still be treated to the company's quarterly report today.
A much more notable company uncapping its financials is PepsiCo (NYSE:PEP). A silver medalist in the soda wars but clutching the gold when it comes to salty snacks, analysts expect the food and beverage giant to produce earnings of $0.60 a share -- an improvement over last year's $0.54 a share showing -- in its fiscal fourth quarter.
Friday
Automakers will be kicking their own tires as the industry reports auto sales for the month of September. This is a pretty critical time for automobile specialists as the 2004 models need to be cleared out to make room for the 2005 editions.
It's also the first day of October. You may not notice much of a difference, but for mutual fund managers who spent Thursday dolling up their mutual fund holdings in a sad practice known as window dressing -- to look sharp in their third-quarter results by pretending to have owned hot stocks all along -- it's time to get honest again. Well, at least until the end of December.
Until next week I remain,
Rick Aristotle Munarriz
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz wouldn't know how to dress a window, a wound, or a turkey. He can barely dress himself. He doesn't own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this article.
