Five-Day Forecast: Zebra Changes Stripes

I'll be looking at some key oil sector data early next week, but I am focusing on earnings this week. In the midst of all the drama around banks and commodities in recent months, investors have seemingly forgotten about most other sectors.

Drug stocks, for example, are far from the headlines these days. But a heavy dose of earnings in coming sessions could prove to be an elixir for these beleaguered stocks. We'll get reports from Merck (MRK - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Schering-Plough (SGP - commentary - Cramer's Take) on Monday and Biogen Idec (BIIB - commentary - Cramer's Take) on Tuesday.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Pfizer (PFE - commentary - Cramer's Take) come in on Wednesday, with Eli Lilly (LLY - commentary - Cramer's Take) on Thursday.

Investors now assume that these drug stocks are dead in the water due to a dearth of promising new drugs in the pipeline. And current EPS trends are uninspiring, as the accompanying table indicates.

But since investors assume that these companies lack any growth prospects, this might actually be a good time to check in on the status of their drug pipelines. On the slate of upcoming calls, give a careful listen for drugs that are moving well through the clinical pipeline that could eventually move the needle on the income statement.

With some of these stocks trading for eight to 12 times projected earnings, and in possession of cash-rich balance sheets, the value proposition has never been more clear -- if the drug pipelines are starting to fill up.

Waiting and Waiting for an Emerging Technology

A few years ago, Radio Frequency ID (RFID) technology received heaps of attention from the financial press. This technology was supposed to be broadly adopted by retailers, shippers and any industries that needed to track items that move through the supply chain.

RFID was supposed to supplant barcodes, which have been used to track assets for the last 15 years. Which helps explain why key barcode vendors, such as Zebra Technologies (ZBRA - commentary - Cramer's Take), Intermec (IN - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Motorola's (MOT - commentary - Cramer's Take) Symbol Technologies division made big bets on RFID.

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David Sterman has been an equity analyst and financial journalist for 15 years, most recently serving as Director of Research at Jesup & Lamont Securities.