Are you keeping track of the corporate earnings results from home? If you are an invested in this market, I strongly suggest you keep a close eye on earnings reports. So far the earnings news from this quarter has been quite good. Some major companies such as UPS, Caterpillar, 3M, AT&T, Intel, and American Express have really topped analyst’s expectations quite easily.

What is most encouraging about the results thus far? The single most encouraging thing about the positive surprises this earnings season is that they are spread out among many different industries and sectors. If a company like 3M is surprising to the upside, it speaks well about several industries. Caterpillar and UPS have struggled for several quarters, so for them to be so upbeat is a welcome change for the market.

If you look closely at American Express and their earnings report, they mentioned that customer spending is almost back to pre-recession levels. As I pointed out in last week’s post, Intel was upbeat about business spending rising in a big way. This combination certainly speaks well for the long-term prospects of the recovery.

Make no mistake about it; there are plenty of obstacles yet to overcome. The unemployment rate is still extremely high and consumers and investors need to regain confidence in the economy and the market. In the short-term I think you should expect continued volatility as the economic news remains fairly mixed. Remember, this is a time of year that the stock market does not typically fare very well. August and September are notorious for being bad months for the market. In light of the fact that corporate earnings results are starting to come around, it may be prudent to start putting together a shopping list of stocks you may want to purchase in the fall after the market has discounted some high quality names.