Most of this past week the stock market was erratic. News from Asian and American Markets was generally positive, sending the indexes higher, until unsettling news from the European Union let the air out of the tires, resulting in 100 point swings of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which ended Friday up about 50 points for the week at 10,850.36.

Each day started upbeat and then we would hear about Greek debt, bonds coming due, Germany pushing for IMF participation in any plan to help Greece. Finally when this looked to be settled, we then got news of economic turmoil in Portugal. This activity stimulated me to write the following recent commentary:

Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) kicks off another earnings season this week, and analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are looking for another net loss for the third quarter. Can we take that as a sign of things to come, or as a bellwether for the economy? Well, barring a big downside surprise, this will be the third narrower quarterly loss for Alcoa. But while Alcoa beat estimates in July, it missed them in April. Alcoa's shares, on the other hand, are up 145.6% since the March low, which is well more than twice as much either the Dow or the S&P 500.

During its third quarter, New York-based Alcoa continued restructuring efforts, remained a part of the DJIA Sustainability Index, and declared a quarterly dividend. It is expected to report a net loss of $0.12 per share for the three months that ended in September. That compares to a profit of $0.37 in the same period of last year. Third-quarter revenue is forecast to have fallen 38.3% to $4.5 billion. Analysts so far expect to see a profit in the fourth quarter, but not for the full year. Alcoa has missed earnings expectations in three of the past four quarters. The long-term EPS growth forecast is 20.0%, again much better than the S&P 500. The First Call consensus recommendation is to hold AA; CNBC concurs that now is not the time to buy. At $12.82, shares are 30.0% higher than three months ago, but 33.4% lower than a year ago.