Consumer Health Check: Coming Week

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The consumer has been the center of conversation for months, and the coming week will finally see more light shed on exactly how difficult the recession has been on buyers.

Some of the biggest U.S. retailers -- Target(TGT Quote), Sears Holdings(SHLD Quote) and Home Depot(HD Quote) -- are scheduled to report quarterly results over the next few sessions and their sales tallies should give a clear indication of how much the consumer spent in the second quarter.

In fact, next week's earnings schedule revolves almost completely around retailers, and while bottom-line results may not compare to Wal-Mart (WMT Quote), the world's largest retailer, market analysts suspect that other stores will run into the same problems of weaker-than-expected quarterly sales and narrowing margins.

On Thursday, Wal-Mart posted better-than-expected second-quarter earnings, beating the Thomson Reuters average estimate by 3 cents, although the shoppers who flooded Wal-Mart stores for lower prices failed to push sales above the $102.9 billion consensus.

Art Hogan, chief market strategist with Jefferies, says that Wal-Mart accounts for 20% of retail sales data by itself, making it a pretty good barometer for other retailers. However, Hogan says it is worrisome that Wal-Mart missed top-line estimates especially considering it is the beneficiary of the trade-down effect, meaning that consumers are migrating to Wal-Mart because of its low prices.

1 What would best describe your stance heading into the coming week of trading? Bullish Bearish Neutral 2 Which of these sectors do you think is set to move up in the coming week? --Choose One--Aerospace and DefenseAirlinesAutomobilesBeverages and Food ProductsBiotechnologyCommercial BanksComputers and PeripheralsConsumer NondurablesEnergy Equipment & ServicesHMOs and HospitalsHomebuildingInsuranceIntegrated OilInternet, Software ServicesInvestment Bankers and BrokersMediaMultiline RetailPharmaceuticalsPrecious MetalsSemis, Semi EquipmentTelecom EquipmentTobacco and AlcoholWireless CommunicationsUtilities 3 Which of these sectors do you think is set to move down in the coming week? --Choose One--Aerospace and DefenseAirlinesAutomobilesBeverages and Food ProductsBiotechnologyCommercial BanksComputers and PeripheralsConsumer NondurablesEnergy Equipment & ServicesHMOs and HospitalsHomebuildingInsuranceIntegrated OilInternet, Software ServicesInvestment Bankers and BrokersMediaMultiline RetailPharmaceuticalsPrecious MetalsSemis, Semi EquipmentTelecom EquipmentTobacco and AlcoholWireless CommunicationsUtilities View the results without voting

"It's safe to say that unless you have a consumer working their way upstream again, you're going to see everyone missing or coming close to top-line estimates," Hogan said, adding that companies will meet profit expectations only through cost-cutting. "While we view Wal-Mart as a victory in that respect, we're not sure these other names can do the same thing."