Dozens of companies report earnings this week, and analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are anticipating lots of strong quarterly reports. Among those posting improved results should be Microsoft and Visa. However, likely to post losses are Office Depot and Sprint Nextel.
Between now and 2014, a wave of commercial real estate loan failures threatens to swamp the nation's already weak financial system. The Congressional Oversight Panel warned this week that the potential defaults could push thousands of smaller banks into failure.
The Congressional Oversight Panel, created along with TARP, has issued a report taking Treasury to task for having "effectively no metric to determine whether [its] actions met its stated goals." Congress and the Fed should also get some blame.
The Congressional Oversight Panel's December report on TARP concluded that it "proved decisive enough to stop the panic and restore market confidence," but failed to address many of the "ongoing problems" in the financial markets and the broader economy. However, it didn't call for ending the program.
