Tomorrow's Headliners: Research in Motion

Research in Motion (RIMM) will be in focus Thursday when the BlackBerry maker reports quarterly earnings results late in the day.

RIM is expected to notch a fiscal first-quarter profit of 94 cents a share on sales of $3.43 billion, according to a Thomson Reuters survey. That compares to a profit of 90 cents a share in the previous quarter and 84 cents a share in the year-ago quarter.

RIM shares have surged 90% in 2009, although as senior writer Scott Moritz points out, the May quarter has been one of the most wildly unpredictable periods. RIM had its biggest miss of the past two years last May, falling about 2% short of analysts' targets. But in the prior May, RIM delivered its biggest positive surprise, blowing past analysts' earnings targets by 10%.

While RIM is the only notable company scheduled to report results after Thursday's close, several reports will be out before the start of trading. Carnival (CCL) and Discover Financial (DFS) will release quarterly results Thursday morning.

In other stock news, investors will be watching Sirius XM (SIRI) following a Reuters report that the satellite radio company will release its own application for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and iPod touch. On Wednesday, shares jumped 23% to almost 40 cents a share.

Thursday will see the release of weekly initial jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. EDT, followed by the 10 a.m. EDT release of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's manufacturing index, which should improve in June to a reading of negative 16.4 from minus 22.6 in May, as well as the May report on leading economic indicators.

In addition, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will appear before legislators in Washington to testify on the Obama administration's restructuring of the financial regulatory system, which the president outlined Wednesday.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints