Coming Week: Earnings Torrent

With an onslaught of earnings reports over the next five sessions, headlined by more than a quarter of all S&P 500 companies, the coming week looks to be one of the busiest of this second-quarter reporting season.

While the handful of financial reports in the previous week helped push the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones Industrial Average higher, market observers caution that the incoming torrent of releases may not act as a strong enough catalyst for the market to push through overhead resistance.

During the previous week, the major U.S. stock averages jumped roughly 7% each on key earnings reports from several financial companies, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote) and Citigroup (C Quote), as well as tech giants Intel(INTC Quote) and IBM(IBM Quote).

Through Friday, 55 companies in the S&P 500 Index had reported earnings for the second quarter, with 71% reporting earnings above analyst expectations. Since 1994, 61% of companies beat estimates in a typical quarter, according to John Butters, a research analyst with Thomson Reuters. The outperformance of financial earnings in the last week helped increase the expected growth rate for S&P 500 companies to -35.2% from -35.7%, he said.

Last week was only the tip of the iceberg, as only 39 S&P 500 companies reported. In the coming week, releases from 143 components of the broad-based index will come in fast and furious. Included in that number are twelve components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, such as AT&T (T Quote), Microsoft (MSFT Quote), American Express (AXP Quote) and Caterpillar (CAT Quote).

And if that isn't enough for investors clamoring for earnings, Apple (AAPL Quote), Morgan Stanley (MS Quote), Wells Fargo (WFC Quote), eBay (EBAY Quote) and Ford (F Quote), among many others, will report quarterly numbers.

Key Corporate Earnings, Week of July 20-24 Company Day of Report EPS Revenue (billions) 3M Thursday (early) 94 cents $5.41 Amazon.com Thursday (late) 31 cents $4.68 American Express Thursday (late) 28 cents $6.29 Apple Tuesday (late) $1.16 $8.16 AT&T Thursday (early) 51 cents $30.69 Boeing Wednesday (early) $1.21 $17.15 Caterpillar Tuesday (early) 22 cents $8.86 Coca-Cola Tuesday (early) 89 cents $8.66 Delta Air Lines Wednesday (early) (27 cents) $6.99 DuPont Tuesday (early) 53 cents $7.15 eBay Wednesday (late) 36 cents $1.99 Ford Thursday (early) (56 cents) $24.51 Halliburton Monday (early) 27 cents $3.42 McDonald's Thursday (early) 96 cents $5.72 Merck Tuesday (early) 77 cents $5.84 Microsoft Thursday (late) 36 cents $14.38 Morgan Stanley Wednesday (early) (49 cents) $5.35 Pfizer Wednesday (early) 47 cents $11.27 Qualcomm Wednesday (late) 52 cents $2.72 Starbucks Tuesday (late) 19 cents $2.37 Texas Instruments Monday (late) 18 cents $2.41 United Technologies Tuesday (early) $1.04 $13.91 UPS Thursday (early) 49 cents $11.02 Wells Fargo Wednesday (early) 34 cents $20.49 Yahoo! Tuesday (late) 8 cents $1.14 Blue=Dow component