Opportunity -- and Hard Work -- Ahead

The U.S. stock market has been a strong and steady leader this year amid some pretty rough waters in the global markets. Ironically, the world's markets were able to put on a decent rally with the U.S. market closed on Monday. The Hang Seng index was the rock star, with a rally of more than 2%.

Back in the USA, the markets will now be all earnings, all the time. I'll go ahead and make the wild prediction that there will be some big individual winners and some big individual losers as earnings reports come in both ahead and behind estimates. For a trader of individual names, that means opportunity and a lot of hard work and analysis ahead. We've already had some high-profile warnings, Motorola (MOT - commentary - Cramer's Take) being the biggest. I'll have a lot of earnings previews and a few trades in the coming days.

From a broader economic viewpoint, we've seen Alcoa (AA - commentary - Cramer's Take) finally deliver some earnings leverage. With energy costs coming down, lots of sectors (chemical, for example) will benefit from higher margins.

Yes, that means some strong, broad forces will be working against the bears' fabled belief that corporate margins need to return to some sort of mystical "historical average." Corporate margins are at historical highs. Why an economy of services and silicon/software technology has to start reflecting the margin reality of the early 1900s this particular quarter or next is beyond me.

Let's hit it hard this week. More after the open.

At the time of publication, the firm in which Willard is a partner had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned, although positions can change at any time and without notice.

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Cody Willard is the manager of CL Willard Capital Management, LLC. He is a regular guest on Fox News, CNBC and other networks, and he writes a monthly column for the Financial Times. He is also an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and the author of TheCodyReport.net, a monthly stock market newsletter. Willard appreciates your feedback -- click here to send him an email.