Last week Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Citigroup announced earnings that beat the street’s expectations. All of them except JP Morgan traded down even after delivering better news. Bank of America and Wells Fargo are going to report this week.

Bank America reports today before market. Every investor out there is going to watch what they say about TARP, the stress test and their failed acquisitions. Wells Fargo will announce their earnings on Wednesday before market. Wells Fargo has already guided higher so every one is going to focus on Bank of America. Wall Street is expecting a profit of 4 to 5 cents a share from Bank of America compared to 23 cents a year ago.

Capital One is going to report on Tuesday. Capital One serves the high credit risk customers. We have to see whether their consumer credit quality is still declining. If Capital One gives us some positive surprise, the market will rally.

Apart from the banks, we have other major companies that report earnings this week. Apple Inc is going to report Wednesday after market. Investors have questions about whether iPhone sales are doing ok, effect of competition from Blackberry, Mac Sales, etc., Apple’s stock rallied in the past two weeks. We will know whether this rally is sustainable on Wednesday.

UPS is going to report on Thursday before market. It will give us the state of the shipping business. It will also give us the clue about e-commerce trends.

Once upon a time, everyone was eagerly waiting for earnings results from Yahoo. I don’t think anyone cares about them now. Yahoo reports tomorrow. EBay reports on Wednesday. Microsoft reports on Thursday. These results will give us clues about technology sector.

We have to watch for reports from Ford, which reports on Friday before market, to see the signs of recovery in Detroit. In the oil and energy sectors, Schlumberger reports on Friday before market, Conoco Phillips and Occidental report on Thursday before market. Halliburton reports today before market. These results will give us indications about the health of overall economy.

Keep your fingers crossed before you hit the buy button in your online brokerage account!

Related Link: Earnings Season

No more speculation about what Goldman Sachs would earn. No more arguments about whether Citibank is going to really turnaround. We will get the Q1 results of major companies this week. The results will tell us whether the banks are really profitable and the real status of U.S. economy.

• Goldman Sachs (GS) will report the earnings tomorrow, April 14th, before market
• JP Morgan Chase (JPM) will report on April 16th, before market
• Citigroup (C) will report on April 17th, before market
• General Electric (GE) will report on April 17th, before market
• Intel Corp (INTC) will report tomorrow, April 14th, after market
• Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) will report tomorrow, April 14th, before market

The earnings will tell us the true story. If all the above companies report good earnings for Q1, the market is going to rally. Be ready for the wild ride,  it can go in either direction!