Shares of retail giant Best Buy (BBY) traded higher Thursday morning after the company posted better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.

Going into the earnings report, analysts had been expecting to see Best Buy report earnings of $1.84 per share for the quarter. Best Buy topped estimates by posting earnings of $1.98 per share.

FedEx Corp. (FDX), the world's leading package delivery service and an ostensible bellwether of the U.S. economy, will dance its way onto the earnings stage this week. Also, with the holiday shopping season well underway, Best Buy Co. (BBY) and Discover Financial Services (DFS) are scheduled to offer up their most recent quarterly results.

Here's a closer look at what the analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are expecting from these three, plus a peek at the week's economic calendar.

Best Buy Inc. (BBY), the nation's largest consumer electronics outlet, is scheduled to discuss its second-quarter fiscal 2011 financial results Tuesday, September 14, in a conference call beginning at 10:00 AM (ET). You can catch a live webcast of the call at the company's website.

During the three months that ended in August, Best Buy named a chief design officer and increased its quarterly dividend. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect the company to post earnings of 46 cents per share, which is a 19.6% increase from a year ago. Its revenue is expected to have grown 5.7% to $11.7 billion.

Last week, the Fed's Beige Book report confirmed that the economy continues to grow, but at a slower pace than in previous periods. This week will bring plenty of economic data to either support or contrast with the Fed's findings.

• Monday: Federal government budget balance for August
• Tuesday: Business inventory numbers from July, TIPP Economic Optimism Index for September, retail sales data from August
• Wednesday: Industrial production in August, Empire State Manufacturing Survey for September, Import Price Index for August
• Thursday: Producer Price Index for August, Philly Fed Survey for September, the Current Account Balance in the second quarter, jobless claims for last week
• Friday: preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, Consumer Price Index for August, real earnings data for August

Ahead of today's Q3 results from mega-retailer Best Buy (BBY), the consumer electronics giant saw its share price get a lift last evening after Citigroup's Kate McShane raised her quarterly EPS figure from $0.38 to $0.45 on the back of a better-than-expected holiday shopping season for the retailer.

McShane noted strength in laptops, video games, televisions and digital cameras -- as well as Geek Squad services to boot. She went on to raise her target for BBY shares from $40 to $45 also. To top it off, McShane raised her same-store sales figure for the Q3 period to a 4% growth figure. From a horrid 2008 season, that growth won't be hard to hit, most likely. Best Buy has been handily competing with Walmart (WMT) and even online retailers this season, as the consumer sector recovers from a recession and job losses, finally, slow down.

Many of us have heard about the end of analog television. Come February 19 2009, analog television signals will be shut off and it will be the Y2K mess all over again. Well, not exactly -- but that's what the FCC will have you believe. If you don't hear many (many) times in the next 10 months that analog television signals are going away in 2009, then you're probably living under a rock.

But consumer electronics retailer Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) probably wishes the FCC would go crawl under a rock. The largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. was fined $280,000 along with other national electronics retailers as the FCC recently doled out more than $9 million in fines for not clearly indicating to consumers that analog televisions will need a special converter box come next February. Best Buy, which has removed analog televisions from its stores, was a tad befuddled by the fine since it does not even sell analog television sets.

Nevertheless, the FCC says that many retailers "willfully and repeatedly" violated the rule governing the specific labeling of analog television sets. Just in case that hermit living on a mountaintop is confused about analog television signals going away, that label on the side of a TV box will save the day. Not. It's not the small amount of the fine that an issue here -- it's how incredibly short-sighted and goofy a federal agency can be about something so minor.

Although I'll get arguments that analog TV being shut off isn't a minor issue, it is. Best buy indicated this to the FCC: "Best Buy has been a leader in helping educate consumers about the analog to digital transition," the company said. "We were among the first retailers to put signage and brochures in our stores, including Spanish language versions of this material. We have had extensive DTV information available on BestBuy.com as well as our Spanish language website."

But whoa -- watch out: those TV box labels might save the day in 10 months for someone. Sheesh.

Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) will be reporting on its fiscal fourth quarter period tomorrow. Retailers continue to feel the pinch from cash-strapped consumers who are spending more on energy and gas. Will the retailer be able to defy analysts' expectations and have a good quarter?

The company already cuts its fiscal 2008 forecast, which is never a good thing. The good news is that Best Buy continues to roll out meaningful promotions to continue attracting business -- something that rivals are not doing nearly as much. Analyst expectations for Best Buy's Q4 period expect a profit of $1.65 per share on revenue of $13.18 billion. Do you think the retailer can make those numbers? I have confidence it will.

It remains to be seen if those fiscal stimulus checks are inspiring U.S. consumers to go out and buy new flat-panel televisions, but I'm sure some will. And I continue to believe that Best Buy is dominating the consumer electronics market in the U.S. right now, while competitor Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) continues to flounder under the pressure from its larger competitor. All those iPods, plasma TVs and laptop PCs are being sold somewhere, right?

Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S., reported Q3 sales of $9.93 billion this past Tuesday. The retailer indicated in its press release that the top product categories in the quarter were flat-panel televisions, notebook computers and gaming consoles such as the Nintendo Wii.

Analyst estimates were in the consensus range of $0.41 EPS on sales of $9.44 billion, which Best Buy smashed with hardly a sneeze. EPS were $0.53 in the Q3 period, a 71% jump from the year-ago quarter. Additionally, its $9.93 billion in revenue was a lift of 17% from last year's Q3 period. What did Best Buy do to smash estimates in what some think is weak consumer economy?

Good question. Americans continue to have an insatiable appetite for electronics and gadgets, and they're buying almost all of them at Best Buy, apparently. CompUSA is shutting its doors for good, and competitor Circuit City (NYSE: CC) has had one disastrous quarter after another this year (and reports Q3 numbers tomorrow). The only cloud over Best Buy's Q3 results were in the retailer's Q4 guidance, in which the retailer expects EPS of $1.70 to $1.80 -- a small dip from analyst expectations of $1.82. Still, analyst expectations are built from hype and sometimes flawed analysis anyway, so does this matter much?

Consumer electronics leader Best Buy Co. (NYSE: BBY) reported better-than expected second quarter earnings this morning. The largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. said that it saw revenue of $8.75 million for the quarter, an increase of 15% from the year-ago quarter. Apparently, all those flat-panel television sale decreases were not as damaging as feared.

But that's not what Best Buy execs pegged as the reason for the quarterly lift. Back-to-school sales were single-handedly referenced as the reason for the increase, which means computers, computers and more computers. Either that, or students were buying new stereo receivers and plasma TVs for those dorm rooms. Some smart ones maybe bought washing machines and dryers (heh).

That is not all. Best Buy added 113 new stores in the quarter (yeah, I can see that helping), all of which sold back-to- school supplies in abundance during the quarter. Best Buy was also said to have taken market share from competitor Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) in the quarter due to newer stores being placed in better locations. Add that to a better customer environment and very good management of cost controls and it's no wonder the retailer is ahead of the competition.

Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is set to release its second quarter earnings tomorrow at 10 a.m. EDT, and it seems the retailer will have a fine quarter. Although sales of consumer electronics have been cited as slugging this past quarter, I am of the belief that Best Buy will barely fall short of consensus earnings estimates of $0.50 EPS for its most recent quarter. My guess? $0.49 EPS for the quarter.

Yes, there has been a slowdown of consumer electronics spending so far in 2007, but that has come at the expense of other chains like competitor Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE: CC) (in the midst of a horrid year) and even Tweeter, which just filed for Chapter 11. Is Best Buy immune to all this? Of course not, but the company has its act together and I think will continue to remain unscathed by the industry slowdown for at least another quarter (the one it is in now). The market share Best Buy currently has may soon be under attack at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) beefs up its home entertainment and electronics category, but that won't be overnight.

Again, we're hearing that the plummet in the prices of flat-panel television sets continues to beat up the industry. While this is true to a point, it's not killing the consumer electronics industry as a whole (although it's crimping margins). Therefor, I'm of the belief that BBY will tomorrow fall short of estimates by a penny, coming in at $0.49, but I'd still call this a relatively good performance. Circuit City reports on Wednesday, so we'll see how both chains fare in the next few days. Remember to use the "Refresh" button on your web browser to see updates to the below liveblog every few minutes. All times below are in CST.

The largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S., Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY), will be reporting fourth quarter fiscal earnings tomorrow. Expectations are for the retailer to post about $1.52 EPS for the fourth period, followed by a full-year EPS figure of about $2.70 to $2.80. Best Buy is expanding from retailing into the service provider business as well, so things seem to be in full swing for the company right now, in stark contrast to retail competitor Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE: CC).

In December, Best Buy reported strong sales of flat-panel TVs, video gaming equipment, MP3 players and notebook computers, with December sales coming in at $6.6 billion alone -- a 15% rise over the year-ago period. Just as competitor Circuit City is in somewhat dire straights with its profit (it's losing money) and employees (it's firing 3,500 of them to be replaced with lower-paid workers), Best Buy is on a much firmer footing here and should be fine for its recent fiscal fourth quarter.

Some analyst estimates state that Best Buy's sales for the most recent fiscal quarter to go up quite a bit, with one stating that "We look for total sales to increase 19 percent in the fourth quarter, to $12.8 billion, helped by an extra week." If Best Buy can meet that projection, it will be sitting pretty even as it released somber notes a few months ago by stating that prices of flat-panel televisions were falling so fast that the margins on them were vaporizing into thin air.