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Home Depot, Target: Tomorrow's Headliners
By Robert Holmes
TheStreet.com Staff Reporter
11/16/09 03:57 PM EST

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Home Depot (HD:) and Target (TGT:) will be in the spotlight Tuesday as both U.S. retailers are on tap to report quarterly earnings results.

Home Depot will report third-quarter earnings before the start of trading Tuesday, with analysts looking for a profit of 36 cents a share on sales of $16.27 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters. On Monday, rival Lowe's (LOW:) matched analysts' forecasts with its third-quarter report and guidance for the fourth quarter.

Target, meanwhile, should report a profit of 50 cents a share on sales of $15.25 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. Target's report comes days after rival Wal-Mart (WMT:) beat consensus targets for earnings on a per-share basis and also raised its guidance for 2010, also weaker-than-expected sales for the third quarter disappointed Wall Street.

Several other retailers will be out with quarterly results Tuesday, including Saks (SKS:) , TJX (TJX:) and La-Z-Boy (LZB:) .

In addition, Covidien (COV:) , Melco Crown Entertainment (MPEL:) , Autodesk (ADSK:) and Salesforce.com (CRM:) are all due to report earnings Tuesday.

Turning to the day's economic data, investors will be treated to several reports before the trading day begins. At 8:30 a.m. EST, the Commerce Department will release the producer price index for October, with economists expecting the headline number to rise 0.5% after a 0.6% slide in September. The core number, which excludes food and energy, should tick 0.1% higher after an equal decline in September.

At 9 a.m. EST, the September report on net long-term TIC flows, which measures capital flows out of the U.S., should increase to $35 billion from $28.6 billion in August. Fifteen minutes later, the Federal Reserve will post industrial production and capacity utilization figures for October, which should come in at 0.4% and 70.8%, respectively.

Tuesday will also see a bond auction and speeches from political figures. Richmond Fed president Jeffrey Lacker will offer his economic outlook for 2010 at 10 a.m. EST. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at 2:30 p.m. EST to speak about the G-20. In between, the Treasury will hold a $27 billion auction of 1-year bills.

-- Written by Robert Holmes in New York.

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