Earnings Expectations Are High

The following are the earnings expectations for major companies over the next two weeks. The Whisper Numbers are determined by analysts while the Surprise Expectation is a gauge of the website's user base.

Company	Symbol	Release Time	Consensus Estimate	Whisper Number	Surprise Expectation
Alcoa Inc.	AA	Mon ATC	0.05	0.15	82%
Intel	INTC	Thurs ATC	0.35	0.46	80%
JP Morgan Chase & Co.	JPM	Fri BTO	0.61	0.75	63%
Citigroup Inc.	C	Tues BTO	-0.28	N/A	85%
Bank of America Corp.	BAC	Wed BTO	-0.42	-0.35	72%
Wells Fargo	WFC	Wed BTO	0.07	N/A	100%
Goldman Sachs	GS	Thurs BTO	5.35	5.25	74%
Morgan Stanley	MS	Thurs BTO	0.51	0.35	0%
Google Inc.	GOOG	Thurs ATC	5.67	N/A	89%
General Electric Company	GE	Fri BTO	0.25	0.27	82%

Source: Earnings Whispers

Clearly, expectations are pretty high going into this earnings season. The website's users expect upside surprises in every major stock reporting in the next two weeks except Morgan Stanley.

With the large run in stocks over the last few months, overcoming the needed earnings hurdles to justify the moves is becoming tougher and tougher. This quarter's earnings reports will have the peak of the expansionary monetary and fiscal policy initiatives baked into the numbers. As the government starts thinking about reigning in its spending and taking back some of the provided liquidity in 2010, this quarter will likely be the one to compare against for the strength of the economy. We will look to these numbers when we study whether companies are going to be able to stand on their own later in the year with less government support.