By Ben Fox Rubin
Major banking and tech firms will be reporting results next week
as the second-quarter earnings season gears up.
Also, several IPOs are expected to launch next week, including
website RetailMeNot and homebuilder UCP.
Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup
Following J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Wells Fargo
& Co. (WFC) on Friday, a large group of investment and consumer
banks will be reporting results next week.
Analysts expect Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), which reports
Tuesday, to post better results than it did during the second
quarter of 2012, but slip compared with the first quarter of this
year in key areas such as bond trading and investment banking. Both
businesses lost momentum after the Federal Reserve signaled it
could end its bond-buying program designed to help boost economic
growth.
Investors will be closely watching Bank of America Corp. (BAC),
which reports Wednesday, to see how the company continues to work
on cutting its expenses, as it endeavors to put its crisis-era
legal troubles behind it. The bank has struggled with a decline in
its lending profitability in the past amid low interest rates and a
sluggish economy, but some analysts think an improving lending
market could benefit the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank in the
future.
Other banking and financial firms reporting next week will be
Citigroup Inc. (C), Morgan Stanley (MS), American Express Co.
(AXP), Blackrock Inc. (BLK), Blackstone Group L.P. (BX), Piper
Jaffray Cos. (PJC), U.S. Bancorp (USB) and Capital One Financial
Corp. (COF).
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Intel, IBM
Many heavy-hitters in tech will also be coming out next week,
including Google Inc. (GOOG), Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), International
Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Intel Corp. (INTC) and Microsoft
Corp. (MSFT).
A growing percentage of activity on Google's Web-search engine
is taking place through mobile devices, where online ads generally
cost less than those on sites accessed by desktop PC users. Now
marketers increasingly say that the prices of ads sold by Google
for the mobile-device version of its search engine are going
up.
Google has worked hard to boost those mobile-ad prices. It has
encouraged its biggest advertisers to create better websites for
mobile devices to increase the chances that people who land on the
site after clicking on the companies' ads end up making a
purchase.
Other tech companies reporting include Advanced Micro Devices
Inc. (AMD) and eBay Inc. (EBAY).
Other Stocks to Watch
Many more significant and notable companies will come out with
their results next week as earnings season ramps up. They include
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (CMG), Union Pacific Corp. (UNP),
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ),
Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB) and UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH).
Handful of Companies Expected to Go Public
Several companies are set to launch their initial public
offerings next week, including coupon-aggregation website
RetailMeNot Inc., homebuilder UCP Inc. and biopharmaceutical
OncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc.
UCP operates in Northern California and has a growing presence
in the Puget Sound area of Washington state. UCP was acquired in
2008 by Pico Holdings Inc. (PICO), which will continue to own a
portion of the company's stock following the IPO.
UCP had said proceeds will be used for land development, home
construction and other related purposes.
Orchard Supply Seeks Bankruptcy Loan, Bonuses
Orchard Supply Hardware Corp. (OSHWQ) next week will ask a
bankruptcy judge to let it borrow $176.3 million and pay up to $3.1
million in bonuses to its top executives.
The West Coast-based chain of hardware and garden-supply stores
says both requests are critical to the success of its upcoming
auction: the loan will ensure its operations continue until a new
buyer takes over, and the bonuses will motivate the executives to
scrounge the market for the best possible offer.
Orchard Supply's existing lenders, a group led by Wells Fargo
Bank, have offered to put up $176.3 million, but only $58.3 million
of that is new money. The remainder will pay off the retailer's
existing debt.
Write to Ben Fox Rubin at ben.rubin@dowjones.com
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