Alcoa

There's never a dull moment on Wall Street, especially when earnings season is just about to get under way. Let's go over some of the items that will help shape the week that lies ahead.

After a wild third quarter, the market seems to have stabilized a bit this week, in spite of a late Friday drop. With little macro-data news, investors turned their focus to Europe's debt crisis and third-quarter earnings season. Company-specific news drove stocks; here's a closer look at some of the S&P 500's most notable movers.

When is a 27% increase in sales, and a doubling of profits, bad news? It certainly sounds like an exceptional circumstance, but that's where Alcoa finds itself today, having missed earnings estimates and facing a discouraging free cash flow.

Earnings season unofficially kicks off today, but 26 companies have already reported for the second quarter of this year. According to institutional data provider Capital IQ, here are some of the highlights so far:

Alcoa Inc.'s (AA) second-quarter earnings more than doubled as improving sales and prices offset higher raw material costs. Alcoa said Monday that its net income totaled $322 million, or 28 cents a share, in the April-to-June quarter. That compared with net income of $136 million, or 13 cents...

The aluminum giant turned a first-quarter profit on stronger sales at higher prices that were offset by a weaker dollar and higher costs for energy and raw materials.

Home retailers Bed Bath & Beyond and Pier 1 Imports are scheduled to post quarterly earnings this week, along with Monsanto, the biotech, agriculture and chemical giant. Here's what analysts expect to see.

Once again, profit reports are expected to be a tale of strong growth, thanks more to cost cuts than revenue gains. And perhaps even more telling, fourth-quarter 2010 earnings are competing with downright dismal reports for the year-earlier period. [Video]

Alcoa, Intel and JPMorgan Chase will kick off a new earnings season this week when they report their results for the fourth quarter of 2010. Here's what analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect, followed by a glance at what's coming up on the economic calendar.

China and other emerging markets will be a growth story for a long time to come, creating opportunity for American companies and investors. Nikhil Hutheesing and Dan Burrows face-off in this video about which U.S. stocks stand to benefit the most.