After a week full of mixed economic data taking its toll on the markets, things will settle down somewhat this coming week.

• Monday: Fed releases October data on consumer credit outstanding.
• Tuesday: TIPP Economic Optimism Index is due.
• Wednesday: Labor Dept. offers initial jobless claims numbers for last week, EIA's crude oil inventory last week, October wholesale trade numbers from the Census Bureau.
• Friday: Trade balance data for October, Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its Import Price Index for November, preliminary Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is due, and the Treasury Dept. releases the federal budget balance in November.

"When Apple, Inc. (AAPL) was the soft cuddly underdog, everyone loved them and rooted for the company's success and, just like when the Boston Red Sox finally won the World Series, it was easy to be an AAPL fan as the company triumphed," suggests Paul McWilliams, who offers a bullish review of the stock prior to its earnings release after the market tomorrow.

The technology specialist and editor of Next Inning newsletter explains, "However, now that AAPL has won a position near the top of the world in both its markets and for the valuation awarded by the stock market, everything AAPL does is viewed with new and critical scrutiny.

"Indeed, Steve Jobs has fought and slain more dragons than I can count since founding Apple some 34 years ago.

"Jobs certainly didn't win all the battles. In the early years, he lost a number of the more important contests. However, he learned from his defeats and upon returning to AAPL earlier this decade, has proven himself to be the consummate Alpha warrior.

Home improvement retailer Lowe's Companies (NYSE: LOW) will be reporting its second quarter earnings before the market opens on Monday, and there are some positive indicators that it may have been a good quarter for the company.

Over the past year, weak consumer confidence has put a strain on Lowe's, as home owners who have worried about job security and a weak housing market have put off home repair projects. As a result, Lowe's stock fell as low as $13.00 back in March, but has rebounded nicely over the past few months to its current trading price of $22.71.

I think IBM (NYSE: IBM), whose colleagues include Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), is a great long-term idea. Unfortunately, it might be a bad short-term idea. According to news from earlier in the week, some analysts are speculating that Big Blue may miss earnings expectations for the third quarter.

The negative catalyst? You guessed it. The terrible economic calamity that is tearing down Wall Street institutions is threatening the iconic technology concern. Not even the Cloverfield monster could do as much damage to Wall Street as what has been done by those mutant-mortgage investment vehicles. Not even close. And the theory now is that IBM may become the victim of its exposure to both customers in the financial sector and to the financing it extends.

However, if you read a rebuttal by my colleague Douglas A, McIntyre, you'll see that he doesn't buy that IBM is going to miss come the next report. He brings up some good points. In fact, he brings up probably the best point there is: IBM hasn't warned yet, and if it needed to, it would have. So the stock sold off during the week in part because of all this debate about Q3. It begs the question: Does this sell-off make IBM a buy?

It has definitely been a rocky earnings season so far. We have seen our fair share of surprises... both positive and negative over the past few weeks, and tomorrow will be Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO)'s turn to report. The stock rose slightly today ahead of tomorrow's earnings, trading up 0.1 percent to $29.50 up 4 pennies.

Analysts are expecting to see the company show earnings tomorrow afternoon of 35 cents per share when it reports its fiscal fourth quarter numbers following the market close. If history is any indication, I would not be surprised to see the company at least match estimates for the quarter. Cisco has a very strong track record when it comes to earnings reports.

One analyst, Bill Choi from Jefferies and Co., told his clients that the company ended the year "on a strong note" and that he would not be surprised to see the company come in with estimate beating numbers for the quarter.

The company is going to report earnings shortly after the market closes tomorrow, and then will host its quarterly conference call starting at 4:30 PM EDT. We will be liveblogging tomorrow afternoon's call in its entirety, so be sure to check tomorrow afternoon for all the details on the company's quarter.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) announced its earnings this week and absolutely crushed the estimates. Apple reported $0.87 per share, while Wall Street expectations had ranged between $0.63 and $0.66 per share. The stock has moved up very nicely to around $100, but if one extrapolates the earnings momentum, which puts a $4.50 earnings number for 2008 and a PE multiple of 30 times (which Apple deserves), the stock should be right above $125 per share. Simple math, easy projection, so why is the stock only at $100?

Apple did indeed crush analysts estimates, but a huge part of the "extra earnings" are either not sustainable or predictable. Every company that trades in the public markets has a financial business model that the chief financial officer and research analysts work from. One dollar of revenues should equal how much profit on a pre-tax basis, or the operating profit margin. In the case of Apple, the financial model is for 27 to 30%, or 27 to 30 cents per dollar of revenue should be at the pre-tax profit line. That's Apple's model. So what happened?

This quarter Apple reported an operating profit margin of 35% -- a huge, huge increase. Reason to celebrate and uncork the champagne bottles? Not exactly. The reason Apple had a 35% operating margin was because of their enormous savings in semi-conductor chips and equipment. Every Mac and iPod is run by a set of integrated circuits that Apple outsources to various semi-conductor manufacturers. Apple was able to take advantage of an oversupply in the semi-conductor world driving down pricing, therefore generating the extra pre-tax operating margin. It may just be a one- or two-quarter pricing advantage, not something that can be taken for granted and made part of the permanent financial model.