03 February 2012 at 9:35 GMT
Next week's most important earnings releases will come from major oil and mining companies. We know that the oil companies reporting will no doubt have impressive numbers just like the first oil companies which reported did, thanks to rapidly rising oil prices between Q4 2011 and Q4 2010 (see chart below). With next week's earnings from oil companies it will likely become clear that during the last year energy is one of the best performing sectors together with information technology, as measured by sales and earnings growth.
Source: Bloomberg
On the contrary the materials sector has so far been the second worst performer in the S&P 500, as measured by sales and earnings growth. However, next week's earnings releases from major mining companies such as Xstrata, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto could change all that. More importantly those mining companies are worth watching as they will give insight into Chinese demand for metals which is directly linked to economic growth.
Read the full publication with all of next week's earnings releases in the S&P 500 and Stoxx 600 indices.
The most important earnings releases are:
Tuesday
Xstrata, UBS, BP, GlaxoSmithKline, Coca-Cola and Walt Disney
Wednesday
Sanofi, BHP Billiton, Statoil, Cisco Systems, Visa, CVS Caremark and News Corp
Thursday
Daimler, Vodafone, Rio Tinto, BG Group, Diageo, Philip Morris and PepsiCo
Friday
Total and Barclays