(By Rich Bieglmeier) European Central Bank President Mario Draghi was a drag on stocks Thursday. The banker did his best to give the market confidence that his crew has the Euro debt wildfire at least somewhat contained. So much for that, grab the sticks and marshmallows.
We don't expect the NASDAQ to get to a new cycle high off the employment news. With four straight red tapes, the Dow and S&P are now below previous highs, too. To start the week, we warned of lack of confirmation. Unfortunately, it proved reliable once again.
Not all is lost; investors can still take advantage of event driven trades. The most popular of which are earnings. Last week, iStock's iEstimates accurately predicted 14 out of 15 bullish surprises, with 73% of our iEstimates being too conservative (see table 2 below). For two issues, the earnings estimates varied too much from vendor to vendor to settle on the "right" estimate; although, both seemed to top the Street's outlook.
Here are this week's iEstimates:
| Ticker | Date | EPS | iEstimate | Surprise | % Surprise |
| BSFT | Monday, August 06, 2012 | 0.11 | $0.12 | $0.01 | 9.09% |
| UFCS | Monday, August 06, 2012 | 0.25 | $0.40 | $0.15 | 60.00% |
| BECN | Tuesday, August 07, 2012 | 0.56 | $0.59 | $0.03 | 5.36% |
| CTWS | Tuesday, August 07, 2012 | 0.41 | $0.42 | $0.01 | 2.44% |
| DIS | Tuesday, August 07, 2012 | 0.93 | $0.94 | $0.01 | 1.08% |
| LXU | Wednesday, August 08, 2012 | 0.88 | $0.92 | $0.04 | 4.55% |
| WD | Wednesday, August 08, 2012 | 0.49 | $0.50 | $0.01 | 2.04% |
Last week's results:
| Ticker | Report Date | EPS | iEstimate | Surprise | % Surprise | ACTUAL | Actual Surprise |
| SXL | Thursday, August 02, 2012 | $0.71 | $0.86 | $0.15 | 21.13% | $1.28 | $0.57 |
| AWH | Tuesday, July 31, 2012 | $1.80 | $2.14 | $0.34 | 18.89% | $2.35 | $0.55 |
| CVI | Wednesday, August 01, 2012 | $2.00 | $2.25 | $0.25 | 12.50% | $2.52 | $0.52 |
| PPS | Monday, July 30, 2012 | $0.58 | $0.61 | $0.03 | 5.17% | $0.73 | $0.15 |
| HCC | Tuesday, July 31, 2012 | $0.75 | $0.78 | $0.03 | 4.00% | $0.90 | $0.15 |
| HLF | Monday, July 30, 2012 | $0.96 | $0.99 | $0.03 | 3.13% | $1.10 | $0.14 |
| LQDT | Tuesday, July 31, 2012 | $0.43 | $0.47 | $0.04 | 9.30% | $0.56 | $0.13 |
| MDC | Tuesday, July 31, 2012 | $0.09 | $0.11 | $0.02 | 22.22% | $0.22 | $0.13 |
| ORA | Wednesday, August 01, 2012 | $0.09 | $0.13 | $0.04 | 44.44% | $0.19 | $0.10 |
| MGAM | Tuesday, July 31, 2012 | $0.18 | $0.28 | $0.10 | 55.56% | $0.25 | $0.07 |
| ABMD | Thursday, August 02, 2012 | $0.03 | $0.05 | $0.02 | 66.67% | $0.08 | $0.05 |
| EIHI | Thursday, August 02, 2012 | $0.20 | $0.23 | $0.03 | 15.00% | $0.25 | $0.05 |
| NVMI | Tuesday, July 31, 2012 | $0.17 | $0.36 | $0.19 | 111.76% | $0.20 | $0.03 |
| H | Wednesday, August 01, 2012 | $0.23 | $0.24 | $0.01 | 4.35% | $0.24 | $0.01 |
| EXP | Thursday, August 02, 2012 | $0.37 | $0.39 | $0.02 | 5.41% | $0.31 | -$0.06 |
| EPIQ | Tuesday, July 31, 2012 | $0.09 | $0.11 | $0.02 | 22.22% | DATA ISSUES |
| ENTR | Wednesday, August 01, 2012 | $0.03 | $0.04 | $0.01 | 33.33% | DATA ISSUES |