Wall Street to Weigh Quarterly Earnings

The rush of quarterly earnings from such icons as chip maker Intel Corp. and banking titan Citigroup Inc. this week may give the stock market a boost as corporate America tips toward an improving economy.

This week and next mark the most hectic period of the second-quarter earnings reporting season. Investors are betting the quarterly results will help justify Wall Street’s double-digit run-up since major market indexes hit 2003 lows on March 11.

“We have obviously rallied pretty strongly, and we just need confirmation that second-quarter earnings are going to catch up to the market,” said Joe Kalinowski, director of research at Puglisi & Co. “I anticipate we are going to have a pretty strong reporting season.”

Also this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will present the Fed’s take on the economy Tuesday and Wednesday when he testifies in one of his twice-yearly appearances before the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee.

His testimony comes three weeks after the Fed cut overnight interest rates to a 45-year low of 1%.

With the manufacturing sector listless, the number of Americans receiving unemployment checks at a 20-year high, and the jobless rate at a nine-year peak of 6.4%, the economic picture is still cloudy, economists say.

“There are small inklings that things are going to get better,” said Kurt Karl, chief economist at Swiss Re. But “the concern is not so much that we are going into a recession but that we could stay in this slow-growth, no-jobs scenario for a while.”

Here’s a summary of key business events and reports due out this week:

Tuesday

* The Commerce Department reports on retail sales for June.

Wednesday

* The Commerce Department releases business inventories for May, while the Labor Department posts the consumer price index for June.

* The Federal Reserve reports industrial production for June. Capacity use in May was 74.3%, a 20-year low.

Thursday

* The Labor Department posts weekly jobless claims. The week before represented the 22nd straight for claims exceeding 400,000, which economists say signals a weak labor market.

* The Commerce Department reports housing starts for June, while mortgage company Freddie Mac reports on mortgage rates.