Schools, sleep, smartphones, and Steve Jobs will have starring roles in the week that lies ahead.
Monday
The new trading week kicks off with Apollo Group (Nasdaq: APOL) hoping to make the grade. The for-profit educator has been making the most of a soft economy that finds the unemployed -- and underemployed -- striving to improve their hire-worthy skills. Analysts see Apollo earning $0.81 a share in its fiscal second quarter, just ahead of the $0.77 a share it rang up a year ago.
Tuesday
Sealy (NYSE: ZZ) is a mattress maker, with the sleep-inducing ticker symbol to match. There was a time when box springs seemed to be an all-weather business. Recession or not, nobody puts up with a lumpy mattress. However, Sealy and its rivals all across the pricing spectrum have felt the economic pinch. Wall Street thinks Sealy will match the $0.04 per share in net income that it mustered a year earlier. That's a sleepy little number, but at least it's profitable.
Wednesday
It may be a quiet week on the earnings front, but that changes on Hump Day with Micron Technology (NYSE: MU), Immucor (Nasdaq: BLUD), and Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) reporting their quarterly results.
Thursday
It's April 1. Do you know where your friendly neighborhood prankster is?
CarMax (NYSE: KMX) is one company that will be taking April Fool's Day seriously. The used-car reseller is expected to post improving quarterly results on Thursday morning. It earned $0.17 a share during the previous year's fourth quarter, and the pros see CarMax pulling in with a profit of $0.25 a share this time around.
Friday
The trading week ends with only a handful of overseas companies reporting. Perhaps that's just as well, since later in the day lines may begin to form at Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Store locations. The ballyhooed iPad hits the market on Saturday morning.
Until next week, I remain,
Rick Munarriz
