Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expect Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) to post smaller profits in the first quarter. Both companies are scheduled to report results on Wednesday.

Southwest is expected to essentially break even as far as earnings are concerned, which is down from the same period in 2007 when it earned four cents per share. The company has beat quarterly estimates recently. It only just beat the consensus third-quarter 2007 estimate, but beat the fourth-quarter estimate by 21.2%.

Dallas-based Southwest's low-cost, no-frills approach has made it one of the leading U.S. airlines. In the past year, the company's revenues were $9.8 billion and its net income totaled $645 million. Its EPS growth forecast for the year is -28.7%, worse than the industry average but better than that of rival JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU). The consensus recommendation of analysts remains to buy Southwest.

The stock has fallen 18.5% in the past year and trades at a P/E of 14.7. Shares closed Tuesday at $12.35.

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) is facing a number of lawsuits that say its painkiller Celebrex can cause heart attacks. Yesterday, a court threw some of those cases out. The Wall Street Journal wrote "U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco ruled that plaintiffs in the litigation haven't presented scientifically reliable evidence that Celebrex caused heart attacks or strokes when taken at a daily dosage of 200 milligrams." Pfizer says that the 200 milligram dose is the one most commonly given.

The cases involving Celebrex include over 3,000 plantiffs, and some are suing about effects of the drug at a higher dose, but the ruling is still a considerable relief for the big pharma company.

Like most drug liability cases, this one hinges on whether Pfizer knew that there were risks that the drug could cause significant problems beyond those disclosed on the labels. In that case, the amount of the dose would seem to be academic, especially for anyone who became sick.

But the court may have more wisdom than Wall Street and some plaintiffs will go unrewarded. As the tobacco companies proved two decades ago, suing big business rarely yields much reward.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and the other Big Pharma companies keep taking a pasting as their drugs come "off patent" and are greeted by competition from generic drug makers. As really big drugs like Lipitor move into that pool, the old line drug firms could lose billions of dollars in revenue.

But, the champagne was open at Pfizer today. It won a court case against generic giant Teva (NASDAQ:TEVA) over rights to the painkiller Celebrex, which is the world's top arthritis pain-killer. Teva had tried to get the FDA to approve a version for it to sell. Pfizer said this would violate its intellectual property.

Celebrex now belongs to Pfizer until 2015. The more money it can make off current drugs like this, the better the chance that it can invest in R&D to create new drugs for its pipeline. Otherwise, the company is toast along with its investors.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.