Markets Await General Electric Earnings Friday

On Friday, October 21, General Electric (GE) - Get Report reports quarterly results. Before the markets open, analysts expect the industrials giant to post earnings of $0.32 a share on sales of $29.64 billion. During the same quarter a year ago, the company reported profit of $0.29 a share with revenue of $27.95 billion. Now that its capital business has largely been sold, analysts will be watching how the company's bread and butter businesses performed, including GE Aviation and GE Power. McDonald's (MCD) - Get Report and Honeywell (HON) - Get Report also report earnings before the markets open. As for economic developments, Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo delivers a speech at 10:15 a.m. EDT; the Baker-Hughes (BHI) Rig Count is released at 1 p.m., while San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams is speaking at 2:30 p.m. TheStreet's Scott Gamm reports from Wall Street.