(By Rich Bieglmeier) Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) topped Wall Street's view on earnings and helped pull the Dow into positive territory. Meanwhile, Apple Inc. (AAPL) failed to live up to the hype and dragged the NASDAQ lower. The S&P essentially did nothing.
Technically, the Dow improved a touch, while the NASDAQ and S&P slipped a touch, but neither is no worse for wear.
On Thursday, investors will be treated to Durable Goods Orders and, as usual every Thursday morning, Jobless Claims. Economists project a range of -1.4 % to 2.1 % with a consensus gain of 0.6% for the month.
From the Chicago Fed, to the Flash PMI, to the Richmond Fed, manufacturing news has at best slightly down for China and the PMI, but Richmond did some cliff diving. iStock believes it will be difficult for Durable Goods to have much upside in the surprise. With UPS saying the economy is getting worse before it gets better, we think a miss is more likely than anything else.
Jobless Claims is forecasted to post 380,000 initial claims. Unless the number comes in over 400,000 or well below estimates, Wall Street will probably ignore Claims. iStock believes we will continue to see results exceeding prediction. Our guestimate is 383,000 or higher.
As usual for our Thursday morning stock market report, here are the iEstimates for stocks we believe have an outstanding chance to deliver a bullish eps surprise next week.
| Company | Ticker | Report Date | EPS | iEstimate | Surprise | % Surprise |
| Post Pptys Inc | PPS | 07/30/2012 | $0.58 | $0.61 | $0.03 | 5.17% |
| Herbalife Ltd | HLF | 07/30/2012 | $0.96 | $0.99 | $0.03 | 3.13% |
| Mdc Hldgs | MDC | 07/31/2012 | $0.09 | $0.11 | $0.02 | 22.22% |
| Epiq Sys Inc | EPIQ | 07/31/2012 | $0.09 | $0.11 | $0.02 | 22.22% |
| Hcc Ins Hldgs | HCC | 07/31/2012 | $0.75 | $0.78 | $0.03 | 4.00% |
| Liquidity Svcs | LQDT | 07/31/2012 | $0.43 | $0.47 | $0.04 | 9.30% |
| Multimedia Game | MGAM | 07/31/2012 | $0.18 | $0.28 | $0.10 | 55.56% |
| Nova Measuring | NVMI | 07/31/2012 | $0.17 | $0.36 | $0.19 | 111.76% |
| Allied World As | AWH | 07/31/2012 | $1.80 | $2.14 | $0.34 | 18.89% |
| Entropic Commun | ENTR | 08/01/2012 | $0.03 | $0.04 | $0.01 | 33.33% |
| Hyatt Hotels Cp | H | 08/01/2012 | $0.23 | $0.24 | $0.01 | 4.35% |
| Ormat Tech Inc | ORA | 08/01/2012 | $0.09 | $0.13 | $0.04 | 44.44% |
| Cvr Energy Inc | CVI | 08/01/2012 | $2.00 | $2.25 | $0.25 | 12.50% |
| Abiomed Inc | ABMD | 08/02/2012 | $0.03 | $0.05 | $0.02 | 66.67% |
| Eagle Materials | EXP | 08/02/2012 | $0.37 | $0.39 | $0.02 | 5.41% |
| Eastern Insurnc | EIHI | 08/02/2012 | $0.20 | $0.23 | $0.03 | 15.00% |
| Sunoco Logistic | SXL | 08/02/2012 | $0.71 | $0.86 | $0.15 | 21.13% |