In the Concrete Canyon that is the financial capital of the world, there are data points, and then there are data points.

Thursday's docket offers a "data point of significance" when Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) reports Q2 results. As one of two public, government-sponsored agencies formed to promote home ownership by increasing the availability of mortgage funds, any Freddie Mac report would be noticed by economists, analysts and traders alike, but this quarter's report takes on added import in light of recent subprime mortgage and mortgage-backed asset defaults that have roiled the stock and credit markets in the world's major developed economies and produced a credit crunch.

Moreover, the defaults were a major factor in the Dow Jones Industrial Average's more than 10% retreat from its +14,000-level high earlier this summer and the concomitant housing sector's slowdown that may cause the U.S. economy to slip from projected, below-trend GDP growth into a recession.

Among other FRE metrics, on Thursday Wall Street analysts will pay very close attention to portfolio and credit guarantee income, and the overall quality of its retained portfolio. FRE is expected to post a decline in Q2 2007 earnings per share, to 81 cents from $1.13 in Q2 2006, according to the Reuters consensus estimate. Freddie Mac's shares were down 57 cents to $60.63 in Wednesday afternoon trading.

Still, just as significant, and perhaps more so, will be Freddie Mac's statement and conference call comments: Wall Street will scrutinize any comments FRE may have on the scope of subprime charge-offs and defaults, overall mortgage credit quality (including delinquency rates), housing market conditions, and any comments FRE may have on its retained portfolio.

The aforementioned operational statistics would be noteworthy in a typical market. But in a market that's now diligently (if belatedly) collecting and analyzing subprime and credit information in order to get a comprehensive picture of the scope of subprime defaults and overall mortgage market conditions, Freddie Mac's Q2 report Thursday is, without question, a data point of the most pertinent sort.

After Best Buy Co. Inc.'s (NYSE: BBY) disappointing quarterly results yesterday, competitor consumer electronics retailer Circuit City Stores (NYSE: CC) was expected to do even worse this morning when reporting results from its most recent quarter. Well, Circuit City did not disappoint and reported a $55 million loss this morning after sales at its U.S. stores fell for the first time in three years.

Circuit City's loss of $0.33 per share was a steep change from the year-ago profit of $0.04 per share as sales slipped about 4.3% to $2.49 billion for the quarter that ended on May 31. With Circuit City disappointing these past several quarters and with the current slashing of headcount and store count, can this ailing electronics behemoth get back on track? All those cost savings from these personnel and store changes should help, but Circuit City has more work to do beyond that throughout 2007.

Wal-Mart's commitment to enter the consumer electronics arena in a heavier fashion is not good news to Circuit City, which has its hands full just trying to compete with larger rival Best Buy these days. With CC shares sitting at $16.07 at the close of the market yesterday, that figure represents a decline of about 15% in 2007. And it seems poised to head even lower today as shares are down 2.6% in pre-market trading (9:16 a.m.).

Circuit City shareholders are probably a tad angry, although seasonal shifts and larger-than-expected pricing fluctuations (for the worst) in the red-hot flat-panel television market have jilted Circuit City around a bit this year (and during the last part of 2006). It may come as some relief that Best Buy cut its profit outlook for the year yesterday as well, so Circuit City can at least have a fleeting smile before the turnaround work carries on.

$10.81 billion in revenue. Net income of $3.48 billion, 35 cents a share. Microsoft's quarterly earnings results (it's the company's first fiscal quarter) came in with a bang, a good 11% increase over the year-earlier quarter.

For Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), this news is sweet indeed. The company has shown strong growth in its Entertainment and Devices division, largely on the back of the Xbox 360 -- 6 million consoles sold!, trumpets the earnings release -- but, as Melly Alazraki mentioned in her preview earlier today, the company's real hopes are set on the upcoming release of Vista. Will it crash our computers? Will it suck? Will it justify the costly investments in R&D?

I'm sure many of these questions will be answered in the analyst conference call, which I'll be liveblogging -- 5:30 Eastern, 2:30 in local Pacific time. The stock was up just a touch to $28.35, and was down again a bit in after-hours to $28.20.