More Good News on the Earnings Front

This may be a holiday-shortened trading week, but there will be no shortage of stocks posting their freshest quarterly financials.

I just reviewed seven companies that analysts expect to post higher year-over-year quarterly results this week. But I was really only scratching the surface.

Now that the economy is starting to show signs of life, earnings will separate the winners from the losers of this fundamental turnaround. Thankfully, far more than seven companies are pegged to post year-over-year gains on the bottom line this week. Let's go over a few more:

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

These are companies in vastly different industries. From tech to home ec, from discounted getaways to Spam-maker Hormel, a healthy cross section of sectors are serving up winners these days.

These reports will have meaty implications. NVIDIA is not only a graphics-chip specialist, but also a proxy for many of its chip customers. DirecTV expects to continue growing, even as smaller cable and satellite television providers are struggling to stem defections. And while priceline.com has thrived during the recession, luring in deal-hungry travelers, it's also grown even faster when the going was good.

These reports won't be perfect. Many of these companies are fortunate, in that their latest quarters are stacked up against the dreadful 2008 holiday quarter, when sentiment was at its worst. It's easy to see Applied Materials, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and NVIDIA overcoming year-ago deficits.  

However, since so many companies have yet to turn the corner financially, now is no time to get greedy. If Wall Street gives us at least 14 companies projected to post year-over-year increases this week, I'll take it.

Which of these seven companies do you think will keep improving in 2010? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.