On Tap Today: Dell, WorldCom Report Earnings; Ballmer Speaks

Wall Street's collective breath will be bated today ahead of earnings reports from

Dell

(DELL) - Get Report

and

MCI WorldCom

(WCOM)

. Although the age of the true bellwether is pretty clearly over, strong numbers from major technology companies never hurt the long side of the market.

Elsewhere,

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

CEO Steve Ballmer addresses the penultimate day of the

Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium

, with

Amazon.com

(AMZN) - Get Report

and others set to present.

Expected Earnings Reports

(

This table includes S&P 500 companies only. Dates are as expected according to First Call/Thomson Financial, and may change. The full week's earnings calendar is published separately.

)

* Possibly reporting

Economic Data

(

Forecasts are from

Reuters

. Times are Eastern. For a longer-term economic calendar and more, see

TSC's

Economic Databank.

)

8:30 a.m.:Initial jobless claims for the week ended Feb. 5. Source: Labor Department. Forecast: N/A. Previous: 274,000 (four-week average: 282,000).

Conferences and Meetings

Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium

,

La Quinta Resort & Club

, La Quinta, Calif. Fourth of five days. Presenting today (times Eastern):

11 a.m.: Keynote session: An Internet panel with Goldman Sachs' Brad Koenig and representatives of NetZero (NZRO) , priceline.com (PCLN) and LookSmart (LOOK) .
Noon: Sterling Software (SSW) - Get Report, Silicon Graphics (SGI) , First Data (FDC) - Get Report, LSI Logic (LSI) - Get Report.
12:40 p.m.: Amazon.com (AMZN) - Get Report, Lexmark (LXK) , Texas Instruments (TXN) - Get Report, Modis Professional Services (MPS) .
1:30 p.m.: Project Software & Development (PSDI) , Cadence Design Systems (CDN) , MKS Instruments (MKSI) - Get Report, Micron Technology (MU) - Get Report.
2:15 p.m.: Computer Associates (CA) - Get Report, Read-Rite (RDRT) , Ceridian (CEN) - Get Report, Motorola (MOT) .
3 p.m.: Keynote speaker: Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Report CEO Steve Ballmer.
4:30 p.m.: Microsoft, Webvan (WBVN) , PRI Automation (PRIA) , Broadcom.
5:10 p.m.: Check Point Software Technologies (CHKP) - Get Report, Storage Technology (STK) - Get Report, Mastech (MAST) .
6 p.m.: Novell (NOVL) , Dassault Systemes (DASTY) , CMGI (CMGI) , Comverse Technology (CMVT) .
6:40 p.m.: Entrust Technologies (ENTU) , Ultratech Stepper (UTEK) , Organic (OGNC) , Excite@Home (ATHM) - Get Report.
7:20 p.m.: Hyperion Solutions (HYSL) , Yahoo! (YHOO) , West TeleServices (WTSC) , AllScripts (MDRX) - Get Report.
8 p.m.: MatrixOne, Internet Capital Group (ICGE) , Sabre (TSG) - Get Report, Gilat Satellite Networks (GILTF) .
10 p.m.: Dinner speech: Novell CEO Eric Schmidt.

IPO Lockups Expiring

(TheStreet.com's

Ben Holmes, who heads

TSC's

ipoPros.com subsidiary, keeps a close eye on lockup expirations every week. For more on lockups and why they matter, check out Holmes' primer on the subject. The full week's lockup expiration calendar is published separately.

)

Treasury Auctions

1:30 p.m.: The Treasury Department announces the results of its 30-year bond auction, at which $10 billion of securities will be sold, with bids due at 1 p.m. The auction concludes the quarterly refunding.