Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) announced its first quarter (Q1) earnings today. Intel, the world's largest maker of computer chips, made some 25 cents a share, or some $1.44 billion. The higher than expected revenue of $9.67 billion, however, beat out analyst's expectations, which is probably why shares in after-hours trading have been trending upwards. This same time last year Intel saw $1.64 billion and 28 cents a share, demonstrating that Intel is feeling the economic pinch that everyone else is, despite beating expectations.

All in all, that's a 12% drop in year-over-year profits when comparing the same quarter.

Next quarter Intel is expecting $9 to $9.6 billion in sales.

Another earnings season has kicked off, and here are a few highlights of last week's earnings coverage here at BloggingStocks:

• Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) missed Wall Street's expectations. A small increase in profits was offset by a slump in revenue.
• Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) met analysts' expectations, with modest profit growth, due in part to higher same-store sales.
• General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) met Wall Street's, with modest increases in earnings and revenue over the same period last year. Check out the live blog of the conference call.
• JB Hunt Transport Services (NASDAQ: JBHT) fell short of expectations, with profits down 12% in the quarter.
• PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP) beat earnings per share expectations by a dime, with double digit increases on profits, earnings, and revenues from a year ago.
• Yum Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM) beat Wall Street's EPS expectations by a nickel, due largely to strength overseas. Profit was up 17%, revenue 13%, from a year ago.

Jonathan Berr reports that consumer confidence is the theme of this earnings season. And Ted Allrich offers advice on what to look for in earnings reports.

This coming week will be another busy one for quarterly reports. Upcoming results to watch for include: Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO), eBay Inc. (NYSE: EBAY), Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE).

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Since its upside surprise when it reported last quarter, enterprise software giant Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) has continued with its philosophy of growth through acquisition by acquiring LODESTAR Corp., which supplies software solutions to utilities, as well as product lifecycle management leader Agile Software Corp. (NASDAQ: AGIL). And the share price has been trending upward the past three months.

But it hasn't all been peaches and cream. Billionaire George Soros recently shifted his focus away from Oracle and some other tech stocks in favor of Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). BloggingStocks contributor Georges Yared thinks Oracle's glory days, in terms of growth, may be behind it, and even that it may be a stock for suckers.

Oracle's rivalry with Germany-based SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) continues, of course, not only in the courtroom -- Oracle recently added copyright infringement to its theft charges against SAP -- but also into small and medium-sized companies, where some early indicators suggest Oracle may have the edge. Oddly enough, there has been speculation that Oracle may try to acquire SAP, unlikely though that may be, after it was rumored that Oracle has been purchasing SAP stock.

But Oracle remains part of the Fortune 500, and BloggingStocks contributor Brent Archer thinks the stock might be a bargain. One analyst upgraded Oracle just last week. According to Thomson Financial, Wall Street consensus rates ORCL a buy (12 strong buy, 11 buy, 12 hold). When Oracle reports earnings on June 26, analysts expect earnings per share for this quarter to come in at 35 cents, compared to 25 cents actual from last quarter, and 25 cents a year ago. Its market cap is $96.8 billion, and its P/E ratio is 18.95 (the industry average is 23.49). The consensus price target is $21.25; the 52-week low was $13.77 in July of 2006 and $19.95 last week. It closed Tuesday at $19.88.

Analysts, shareholders (and would-be shareholders), and many others no doubt will be keeping on eye on Memphis-based FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX), the global leader in express transport and delivery, when it reports Q4 2007 earnings next Wednesday, June 20. Many consider FedEx to be a bellwether for the economy.

Since FedEx reported a mild Q3 back in March, the trend of its share price hasn't been especially impressive these past three months. Blame it on the economy, fuel costs, the weather, or stiff competition from rivals United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) and DHL, a Deutsche Post (LSE: DPO) company, but FedEx has struggled of late, as reflected perhaps in the BloggingStocks Battle of the Brands match-up: FedEx vs. UPS. Analysts' feelings are mixed on FedEx as well, and the company does still face such troubles as discrimination lawsuits.

But it's no accident that FedEx is within the Fortune 500's top ranks. It continues to expand, both domestically and internationally, and stands to benefit from impending increased air traffic between China and the United States. General Motors (NYSE: GM) recently declared FedEx its 2006 Supplier of the Year, and the FAA has given FedEx a vote of confidence as well. And in May, FedEx announced a 10% boost in its cash dividend, to ten cents per share. The Motley Fool thinks FedEx may be a bargain, as well.

According to Thomson Financial, the brokers' consensus on FedEx is buy (6 buy, 7 strong buy, 7 hold). Its P/E is 15.89 (compared to 11.96 industry average), and its market cap is $33.16 billion. When FedEx reports earnings next week, Wall Street is expecting revenue of $9.14 billion, or earnings per share of $1.89, compared to $1.82 actual last quarter, and $1.35 a year ago. Its price target is $124.42; the 52-week low was $97.79 in August 2006 and the high was $121.42 near the end of this past February. FedEx closed Wednesday at $108.82.

It's pretty clear that the share price of food processing giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) is closely tied to corn prices. Must be good news for ADM then that corn prices are up as demand for ethanol is at an all time high, and corn syrup seems to be in everything these days. Of course, things are never that clear cut.

It seems the high price of corn syrup may have beverage makers and others reconsidering their choice of sweeteners. And the high price of corn appears to be leading to a surplus in the supply of corn, which of course is bound to drive prices back down.

So where does that leave ADM when it reports Q1 2007 earnings next week? According to Thomson Financial, the current consensus estimates are for revenue of $9.45 billion, or 62 cents per share. Last quarter the actual EPS was 67 cents; a year ago, 46 cents. The analysts' consensus recommendations is buy, with seven out of nine of them rating ADM a buy or strong buy. That's a change from the consensus recommendation of hold, just a month ago. The mean price target is $41.25. ADM closed Thursday at $39.03.

The share price has been trending upward this past quarter from a 52-week low of $30.20 in early January, and after slumping in 2006 after the 52-week high of $46.71 last May. The five-year growth rate is 34.2%, and the current PE is 14.68.

Cramer likes ADM, listing it as one of his ethanol picks. What's not to like? Thomson Financial also points out that ADM has offered upside surprises of more than 10% in its last four quarters, and the average return one month after ADM's positive surprises is 2.6%.

The question is, will the self-proclaimed Supermarket to the World offer up another positive surprise on Tuesday?

While Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) had a nice fourth quarter of 2006, coming in with an upside surprise of two cents per share, there is every reason for low expectations when Amazon reports first quarter 2007 earnings this week. After all, the holiday shopping season is well past, and according to Thomson Financial, the five-year growth rate is -2.79. The consensus estimate for earnings per share is 15 cents, down from 23 cents actual in the previous quarter, and 23 cents a year ago as well. Revenue is expected to be $2.9 billion, down from $3.9 billion last quarter. Twelve out of 28 analysts rate AMZN a hold. Their mean price target is $36, ranging from a high of $48 to a low of $25. And in our Battle of the Brands feature, Amazon is just barely holding its own against rival Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS).

However, the share price has been trending upward this past quarter, and closed at $44.95 on Friday. That was down from its 52-week high of 45.32, which it reached this past week when share price received a bump after an analyst's upgrade. Amazon has been showing strength through the diversity of its offerings, and though Borders Group (NYSE: BGP) has decided to go separate ways with Amazon, Amazon has also made a deal with Tivo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) that shows some promise.

Could low expectations lead the way to a company that's not used to upside surprises in its EPS offering them two quarters in a row? Or could rising expectations be dashed by signs of weakness in the first quarter report? We'll find out on Tuesday.

McDonald's Corp (NYSE: MCD) will be reporting on its fiscal first quarter earnings next Friday the 20. The stock has had a pretty nice run over the last year with shares climbing over 35% since last July. Will this impressive run continue after next week?

If past performance is any indication, there is a strong possibility that McDonald's won't let the market down. It has a great history of meeting or surpassing analyst estimates. The last time that the company was unable to meet estimates was back on January 28, 2005 when it missed by just a penny.

This time around analysts are expecting to see McDonald's report $0.62 per share when it announces its first quarter numbers before the market opens next Friday. For the first quarter last year, the company matched its estimates when it reported $0.49 per share.

There hasn't been a whole lot of news surrounding the fast food giant lately, other than troubles it has run into in China. After being accused of underpaying its employees in the country, China officially cleared the company of any wrongdoing. While it is good news to hear, if you read the fine print of the news release you see that the only reason that the company was cleared is because China does not legally protect the working conditions of working students.

Last week McDonald's announced that it will give unions a bigger presence in its Chinese restaurants, so we can expect to hear a little more on this subject during the conference call next week.

Coca-Cola Co (NYSE: KO) will be reporting its first quarter 2007 earnings before the market opens next Tuesday (April 17). The last time the company reported earnings was back on Valentine's Day, when it was able to put up better than expected earnings for its fourth quarter 2006. At that time, the company posted earnings of $0.52, which came in higher than analyst estimates of $0.50. Sweet.

Coca-Cola has a strong history of beating Wall Street's expectations, so it would come as no surprise to me if the company is able to beat its numbers again this quarter. In fact, to find the last time that Coke was unable to post better than expected earnings, you would have to go all the way back to April 16, 2003 when it matched estimates for its first quarter 2003 report.

We are starting to hear noise that investors have low expectations for corporate earnings in the first quarter. That is a load of crap and misses the point entirely.

Everyone should stop jumping all over quarterly reports and look at traditional value points for the long haul. Sure there may be companies that miss earnings estimates by a penny and see share prices move down. That's often more crap.

Why do they call them "estimates" and then whine when they are off by a penny?

I can think of a dozen companies that should have smashing earnings to report. My expectations are that the overall news will be mild as everyone has taken a deep breadth after a strong 2006, but we should all be looking long term, and in the long term corporate America is strong. The energy sector, railroads, insurance, metals, the Internet, media are all strong and getting stronger. I do not expect them to report mediocre earnings. The housing market is way down, but will not have the detrimental effect that the bears are growling about because other construction sectors are very much alive and well, and are also expanding into international markets.

USA Today reported that we might see 7% appreciation in stock prices this year instead of the 14% last year did. That is fine with me. I forcast DOW 14,000 here we come! last September and that fits in with my expectations. If you buy stocks at discount you can beat the averages, see our Chasing Value section for some ideas.

So while there will be some disappointments in the earnings reports of many companies, you should not even be investing in any companies who's fortunes depend on one quarter. Invest for the long term.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for de.sign and research at an architecture & planning firm. Check out his other posts for BloggingStocks here.

Our special coverage of earnings reports for this quarter has finally wound down, with the final reports coming in from Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL), FedEx Corp. (NYSE:FDX), and General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM).

In our reader polls, optimism carried through to the end. 58% of those of you who took our poll believed that Oracle would beat Wall Street's expectations, and stellar revenues, including better than expected license sales, for the quarter accomplished just that. For FedEx, 48% of you voted that it would beat Wall Street expectations. However, in this case both Blogging Stocks readers and analysts were wrong. The softening economy got the blame for FedEx falling short of expectations.

At the time GM was set to report earnings at the end of January, 52% of readers predicted that it would beat Wall Street expectations, with a full third thinking that the analysts were on the money. But after weeks of delays for "accounting adjustments" GM finally reported, and -- no surprise -- earnings fell short.

Looking back at how you, Blogging Stocks readers, fared against analysts' expectations, you were correct more than twice as often as Wall Street on the stocks we covered, due largely to your optimism. Not only do you appear to have a good sense of how many of these companies are likely to report, but -- right or wrong -- you often expect the best from them as well.

Congratulations, and thanks for playing along. The new quarter begins soon. If there are any companies not on our list of favorites that you'd like us to include for the next quarter, let us know in the comments and we will consider them.

Earnings season has begun to wind down, what with the March 1 deadline that many companies face having just passed. But we've seen plenty over the past week or so on the quarterly reports of some of our favorite stocks.

Blogging Stocks readers were pessimistic ahead of the release from Home Depot Inc. (NYSE:HD), 57% of you predicting in our poll that it would fall short of analysts' expectations. Only 17% thought HD would beat expectations, but 26% of you were correct that the earnings were in line with, admittedly low, expectations.

Readers were also pessimistic on Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA). 41% of you voted in our poll that VIA would miss expectations, though a respectable 32% predicted that it would meet analysts' expectations. But the 27% who thought it would beat expectations turned out to be correct, as the purchase of DreamWorks helped lift Viacom.

You were split on Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) ahead of its earnings release. 36% predicted earnings would be in line with expectations and 35% of you thought it would fall short. But on March 1 we saw that strong competition, weak sales, and legal entanglements were too much for Dell and it missed expectations.

Speaking of splitting your votes: XM Satellite Radio Holdings (NASDAQ:XMSR) and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NYSE:SIRI), the only two real players in the satellite radio market, reported quarterly earnings just a day apart. To the casual observer, these companies may look more similar than different, which was reflected in the recent announcement of their intention to merge. Yet clearly our readers have a favorite, as 57% of predicted XM would fall short of analysts' expectations, while 61% thought Sirius would beat expectations. Your favoritism aside, XM ended up beating expectations (which only 19% of you predicted), while Sirius's earnings were in line with expectations (which 27% predicted). Still, they were more alike than different when you take into account that XM only beat expectations by a penny.

Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE:KO) has been running a television ad recently that features a senior citizen who has somehow gone his whole life without ever tasting a Coke. Just one sip of Coke sends him off on a frantic quest to experience everything he's overlooked during his lifetime. But the most incredible part of that ad may be the notion that someone could have never heard of Coke, let alone not had one. Coke surely ranks right up there with such American icons as baseball and apple pie.

It's not only hard to imagine someone never trying a Coke, but also that there are any unconquered markets left for the world's largest soft-drink company, at least as far as its traditional beverage offerings. That's no doubt why, like Pepsico Inc. (NYSE:PEP) and its other rivals, Coke is focusing so much of its energy these days on alternative beverages: teas, juices, energy drinks, and coffee.

From its origin in textiles in the nineteenth century, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) has grown to become the monster holding company that it is today. Though its core business is now insurance, BRK has fingers in many pies: from owning Geico, Dairy Queen and Fruit of the Loom, to its pieces in the Washington Post Co. (NYSE:WPO), UPS Inc. (NYSE:UPS), and Target Corp. (NYSE:TGT), among many others.

It's all led by investment sage Warren Buffett, the so-called Oracle of Omaha. Buffett is well-known for his philosophy of value investing for the long run, and has often discouraged focusing on quarterly reports. That may be why I had such a hard time finding a confirmed release date for BRK's next earnings report. It also may be why so few analysts closely cover BRK, even though multitudes of individual investors hang on Buffett's every word and move.

The consensus estimate, to the extent that one can truly reach a consensus with only two or three analysts' opinions, is for $1452.36 per share, or growth of 21.4%, according to Thomson Financial. As diversified as BRK is, it's hard to imagine it having a weak quarter, yet BRK.A is rated as a hold by analysts, for reasons our own Jonathon Berr recently explored. The median target price is $123,000. BRK class A shares closed Wednesday at $110,050 (class B shares at $3,667).

That may be neither here nor there for investors, who, like Buffett, are in it for the long haul. BRK will report sometime between now and March 1, and when it does, will it beat the expectations of those who suggest holding (or even selling) the stock, few as they may be? Or will analysts be right and BRK will somehow fall short? What do you think?

Also check out some other earnings reports that we're following, and let us know what you're expecting.

Quarterly reports continue to roll out, as we're in the thick of earnings season. This past week we asked you, Blogging Stocks readers, for your expectations ahead of earnings reports from some of our favorites -- namely, eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Advanced Micro Devices Inc.(NYSE:AMD), Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F), and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT).

So how did readers do at predicting earnings when compared to Wall Street? It looks like a tie to me, seven out of nine predicted correctly in each case. Let's look a little closer at what you expected.

You had little doubt that several of these stocks would beat expectations: EBAY (70% for beat), MCD (72%), SUNW (72%), T (73%), and even JNJ (59% for beat, against 39% for meet). You correctly picked MSFT to beat expectations as well, but with a bit more uncertainty -- 45% picked beat, against 40% just to meet. And while YHOO beat analysts' expectations, too, only 34% of you thought it would; 39% picked meet.

Ford was one of our favorite underdogs in the Best & Worst of 2006. Perhaps such sentiment played a part in why you were nearly split three ways on Ford in this poll, with 35% to beat, 34% to meet, and 31% to miss expectations. Unfortunately, despite your optimism Ford fell spectacularly short.

Poll results were fairly close on AMD as well, perhaps because of AMD's ongoing rivalry with Intel Corp.(NASDAQ:INTC) -- 26% of you picked it to beat, 32% to meet, and 42% to miss expectations. Despite Wall Street's low expectations, AMD fell short, as the largest portion of you predicted. Congratulations.

Upcoming earnings reports include Sony, Google, Starbucks, and Time Warner. Check out these and other earnings reports that we're following, and let us know what you're expecting.