Investors nervous about the possibly stalled economic recovery -- or worse, the beginning of the latter phase of a double-dip recession -- were not pleased with last week's housing numbers. Things were perhaps ameliorated somewhat by durable goods order numbers and a revised GDP that weren't as bad as expected, but that didn't stop the Dow from dipping below 10,000 later in the week, before fighting its way back above the benchmark to end the week, thanks largely to Fed chair Bernanke's comments on Friday.

Though the end of August is usually quiet, this week lots more economic data are due out, including more housing numbers: The Case-Shiller Home Price Index for June on Tuesday, construction spending numbers for July on Wednesday, and NAR's pending home sales for July on Thursday. There's not expected to be much to get excited about in these numbers.

Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) earnings prospects and declining sales resulted in a downgrade.
• America's Car-Mart Inc. (NASDAQ: CRMT) stronger-than-expected Q1 results led shares to a four-year high.
• ArcSight Inc. (NASDAQ: ARST) reported strong Q1 numbers on increasing demand for cyber security.
• Brown-Forman Inc. (NYSE: BF.B) Q1 results easily topped expectations despite a decline in revenue.
• Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN) posted a Q3 loss but revenue improved sequentially, and shares rose.

Cooper Companies (NYSE: COO - option chain) stock is trading lower today after the company reported earnings last night, posting a third-quarter profit of $21.91 million, or 48 cents per share. Excluding one-time items, COO earned 54 cents per share, missing analysts' estimates of 62 cents per share. COO also lowered its 2009 guidance below analysts' forecasts. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on COO.

This morning, COO opened at $25.58. So far today the stock has hit a low of $23.55 and a high of $25.70. As of 11:45, COO is trading at $25.15, down $1.52 (-5.7%). The chart for COO looks neutral and S&P gives COO a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

Monday, June 2

• Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF) reporting Q4 earnings; conference call at 9:00am.
• Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) conference call at 9:30am on new multimedia computer-on-a-chip products.
• Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU) reports Q1 earnings; conference call at 4:30pm

Tuesday, June 3

• Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) to report May sales at 1:00pm.
  
• General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) to report May sales at 2:00pm.
  
• Toll Brothers, Inc. (NYSE: TOL) to report Q2 earnings; conference call at 2:00pm.
• Bob Evans Farms Inc. (NASDAQ: BOBE) to report Q4 earnings; conference call at 4:00pm.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Eli Lilly (LLY) and L-3 Communications (LLL) were the only notable downgrades today:

• HSBC downgraded Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY) to Neutral from Overweight.
• Following the loss of the Army Linguist contract, Credit Suisse downgraded L-3 Communications Hldgs Inc. (NYSE:LLL) to Neutral from Outperform with an $83 target.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Cooper Companies Inc. (NYSE:COO) was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral, with a $42 target at Prudential; they believe another reduction in 2007 guidance is likely and, additionally, the company is likely to lose additional market share in the Toric market.
• Credit Suisse, seeing potential risk to production targets at Murphy Oil Corp. (NYSE:MUR), downgraded the company to Underperform from Neutral.
• RBC Capital Markets downgraded Sovereign Bancorp Inc. (NYSE:SOV) to Underperform from Sector Perform based on valuation.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).