Tax specialist H&R Block (HRB) is slated to take the earnings stage tonight, with Wall Street anticipating a fiscal second-quarter loss of 38 cents per share -- right in line with the firm's year-ago deficit. HRB has been a solid performer on the earnings front, as the company has surpassed analysts' bottom-line expectations in each of the past four quarters.

Judging by today's option activity, traders are anticipating another upside surprise from HRB. Within the first two hours of the session, no fewer than 13,000 calls crossed the tape -- absolutely dwarfing HRB's average daily call volume of just 4,012 contracts.

Century Aluminum (CENX) took a dive right out of the gate Wednesday morning, as traders panned the commodity concern's third-quarter results. Tuesday night, CENX confessed to a quarterly loss of $16.8 million, or 18 cents per share, down substantially from its year-ago profit of $40.1 million, or 45 cents per share. Sales for the quarter climbed to $279.2 million, but CENX's bottom line was dented by a $12.2 million mark-to-market loss on forward contracts.

The aluminum issue managed to exceed analysts' consensus revenue forecast of $269.5 million, but the quarterly loss fell well short of Wall Street's prediction for a net profit of 8 cents per share.

Hovnanian Enterprises (HOV) is scheduled to take the earnings stage after Wednesday's closing bell, with Wall Street expecting the homebuilder to report a fiscal third-quarter loss of 52 cents per share. This would mark a notable improvement over Hovnanian's year-ago loss of $2.16 per share, but there's no guarantee the company can match analysts' expectations. During the past four quarters, Hovnanian has fallen short of consensus earnings estimates on two occasions.

Accordingly, speculators have been loading up on bearish bets as Hovnanian's quarterly report approaches. The International Securities Exchange (ISE) reports that traders have bought to open 4.64 puts for every call on HOV during the past 10 days, revealing a strong bias toward pessimistically oriented options.

Isle of Capri Casinos (ISLE) took a nosedive right out of the gate Tuesday morning, as traders reacted to the gaming guru's surprise first-quarter loss. Ahead of the open, Isle of Capri confessed that it lost $2.7 million, or 8 cents per share, during the first quarter, down from its year-ago profit of $0.9 million, or 3 cents per share. Revenue for the quarter backpedaled 2.3% to $251.9 million.

Analysts were expecting a much stronger earnings report from Isle of Capri, with Thomson Reuters noting that the average forecast called for a profit of 11 cents per share on $262.5 million in revenue.

Shares of electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc. (NYSE: CC) have been soaring this morning after the company reported an unexpected fourth-quarter profit. It was the first time in the last six quarters when the retailer was able to post a quarterly profit.

For the quarter, Circuit City announced that its profit climbed to $4.85 million, or 3 cents a share, up from a loss of $4.25 million, or 3 cents, reported in the same period a year ago. The company's move to lay off employees to cut costs proved efficient in its fight against weak sales. Analysts were expecting the retailer to show a loss of 7 cents per share in the quarter.

Taking a look at the company's quarterly revenue, we see a decline of 8% to $3.65 billion, compare with $3.95 billion last year. For this period, the second-largest U.S. electronics retailer posted a drop of 10.4% in same-store sales. Quarterly revenue numbers missed analysts' predictions for sales of $3.79 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

As Joseph Lazzaro wrote earlier, the market has been selling-off today on inflation concerns, but not all stocks have been hit by today's sell off. In fact, there have been a handful of notable names that have managed to gain ground in today's session.

Shares of wireless carrier Leap Wireless International Inc. (NASDAQ: LEAP) have been surging today, even as the company reported yesterday evening a third-quarter loss of $43.3 million, or 64 cents a share. Analysts had only been expecting to see the wireless carrier show a loss of 22 cents a share, excluding items, according to Reuters Estimates. Included in the company's loss figures were 55 cents per share related to a quarterly change in tax accounting methods. Excluding that, Leap posted a loss of 9 cents a share, handily beating analyst estimates.

The company had a pretty good quarter overall. If you take a look at sales, you see a very respectable jump of 40% in the quarter, which is a great increase. The company posted a third-quarter revenue of $409.7 million, topping analysts' expectations for sales of $405.6 million.

Looking ahead, a Bear Stearns analyst said he anticipates strong gains for Leap Wireless due to the Christmas shopping season. The wireless carrier is also optimistic and expects further improvements in key areas like subscriber growth.

As the market continues to deal with mounting economic concerns, do not be surprised to see the company continue to move higher into next week.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.

Shares of Cooper Cos. (NYSE: COO) are trading down 11.26% in the premarket (8:58 a.m.) following last night's fourth quarter earnings release.

The contact lens maker reported a quarterly loss of $24.2 million, or 54 cents per share. Analysts had been expecting to see Cooper show fourth-quarter earnings of 68 cents per share. Included in the company's figures is $20.3 million costs related to acquisitions, stock-based, compensation and litigation. Looking back a year ago, COO posted a profit of $13.6 million, or 30 cents per share, in the same quarter.

The company posted an 17.5% jump in fourth-quarter sales, which rose up to $253.8 million from $216 million a year earlier. Analysts forecast quarterly sales of $248.8 million.

Looking ahead to the company's full year numbers, Cooper anticipates earnings of $1.30 to $1.80 per share, which is below analysts' expectations for earnings of $2.85 per share. The company also boosted its revenue outlook from$1.02 billion to $1.09 billion upwards to a range of $1.04 billion to $1.09 billion.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.

Swiss banking giant UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) announced this morning it will write down $10 billion, hurt by losses in the U.S. subprime lending market. The company also plans to increase its capital by selling shares to Singapore and an unnamed Middle East investor.

The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation will offer UBS 11 billion francs, while an unnamed Middle East investor will invest 2 billion francs. On its move to raise capital by 19.4 billion francs, the Swiss bank has decided to borrow 13 billion Swiss francs from outside investors, sell treasury shares and replace its cash dividend from 2007 with a stock dividend.

Looking ahead, the bank now expects to swing to a fourth-quarter loss. UBS had predicted back in November it would post a fourth-quarter profit despite pessimistic rumors about its subprime holdings.

Shares of luxury home builder Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE: TOL) are trading up 1.72% in the premarket following this morning's fourth fiscal quarter earnings release.

The company posted a fourth quarter loss of $81.8 million, or 52 cents per share, hurt by the slumping housing market and credit crisis. Included in the company's figures were $314.9 million pretax writedowns related to sold homes that came with no profit. Excluding that, the company's fourth-quarter earnings were 72 cents per share. Analysts had been expecting to see the home builder lose 77 cents per share.

The company also posted a 35% decline in its quarterly sales, which slipped down to $1.17 billion, slightly ahead of analysts' expectations for sales of $1.166 billion.

According to a statement from Robert Toll, chairman and chief executive officer, the year of 2007 was "the most challenging of the forty years" as Toll Brothers posted its first quarterly loss in 21 years. Looking ahead, despite its disappointing earnings, the company anticipates to sell in fiscal 2008 homes in a range of 3,900 and 5,100 at around $630,000 to $650,000 per home.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.