second-quarter earnings

Department stores may be back from the dead, but with tight-fisted shoppers and rising product costs, retailers are set for brutal combat this fall to take sales from each other. The good news for shoppers: lots of big promotions in store.

Instead of embracing what the daily voices of doom are proclaiming -- notice how equity prices continue to edge higher in spite of all the seemingly bad news. Now's the time for long-term vision.

So far so good for second-quarter earnings season. But if stocks have any hope of breaking out of their range-bound rut, the market will need proof of an uptrend in hiring, one expert says.

Blue-chip energy giants ExxonMobil and Chevron report earnings this week, and if analysts' forecasts are right, both should post sharply higher revenues and profits, helped by lower costs and higher oil prices.

News that most European banks appear adequately capitalized to weather further credit strains gave the market a late-day lift Friday. The Dow and Nasdaq are now at breakeven for 2010, while the S&P 500 is off 1%.

Halliburton shares climbed 2.8% in recent premarket trading after the oilfield services company said Monday its second-quarter net income climbed 83% to $480 million, or 53 cents a share, from $262 million, or 29 cents a share a year ago.

After the Dow's 261-point belly flop to end last week on what were, after all, better-than-expected bank earnings, investors may be forgiven for feeling rather queasy after checking out this week's earnings calendar, which includes 120 of the S&P 500.

Stocks fell sharply Friday after earnings from the nation's biggest banks disappointed investors and the latest reading on consumer sentiment plunged on job fears. The financial sector sold off more than 4%.

Profits at the nation's second-largest bank easily topped Wall Street estimates in the second quarter as lower losses on bad loans more than made up for a slowdown in its securities trading and underwriting business.

Stocks vaulted higher Tuesday as industrial bellwethers Alcoa and CSX reassured the market about the pace of the economic recovery. All three major averages extended their winning streaks.