7 Reasons to Worry About Next Week

Layoffs, recalled eggs, and bears -- oh my.

The already dicey recovery is getting iffier, and you don't have to go far to see warning signs in action. Just check out some of next week's quarterly reports.

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

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

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

Bookseller giant Barnes & Noble is scrambling to find a buyer, but is such speculation merely fan fiction? Daring to go out in a blaze of glory, the superstore chain is throwing its weight behind its Nook e-book reader, regardless of the margin-crushing price cuts or model-altering sacrifices it will have to make. Those moves undoubtedly contributed to Tuesday's chunky deficit. Is there a risk that the Nook will sink Barnes & Noble? Will ugly quarterly financials scare away buyers, or woo opportunistic vultures? We may be closer to answering these questions than even the retailer might like.

Hain Celestial should be riding high these days. Organic grocers are generating positive comps again, as shoppers no longer mind paying a premium for more wholesome foods. Hain Celestial is a major player in stocking those aisles as the company behind Terra veggie chips, Westsoy soymilk, and Celestial Seasonings teas.

KongZhong provides wireless value-added services in China. This is a volatile industry in China, between government regulators regulating the industry and mobile providers often hampering the money-making efforts of third-party diversion providers.

TiVo's stay in the double digits was brief, unfortunately. The stock has meandered in the single digits since a recent legal setback. Quarterly profits have also turned into deficits, and this year's rollout of its new Premiere boxes hasn't provided the digital video recorder pioneer with the uptick in subscribers that it has been lacking for some time.

Consumer electronics chain Conn's could use some juice. It has already reported a 6.5% decline in comps for the quarter. Analysts are now simply just waiting for the company to earn half as much as it did a year ago.

Regis has a way with scissors, so investors shouldn't be surprised with a bottom-line haircut. Regis runs several hair salon chains, including Supercuts and Cost Cutters. In theory, this should be a recession-proof business. The economy has to get really bad for families to forgo conventional salons and just fire up the Flowbee. However, Regis has already posted negative comps for its latest quarter, and earlier this month, it announced that it was exploring strategic alternatives. In other words, if you're looking to buy a portfolio of different hair-salon concepts, Regis wants to hear from you.

Finally, we have Ship Finance. The company owns a fleet of 60 ships, with contracts to add eight more, and about half of its fleet is crude oil tankers. This is a surprisingly steady business, granting Ship Finance the luxury to distribute a healthy 6.9% dividend yield. The pros see a profit of $0.56 a share for the quarter, a small dip from the $0.60 a share it posted a year earlier.

Why the long face, short seller?
These seven companies have literally seen better days. The market has rewarded many of these stocks with healthy 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.