US stocks are expected to chop along next week near current levels, as investors look to a handful of earnings reports, including results from software company Oracle Corp, and economic data for some clue to the market's next step.
The three major stock indexes have been bunched around two-year highs and are unlikely to break out either up or down until earnings outlooks for the current quarter arrive later this month, analysts said. Data on jobless claims, consumer sentiment and retail sales will also be scrutinised for any signs of weakness in the economy.
"The market has been consolidating and the only thing that will begin to impact (it) is earnings pre-announcements," Stanley Nabi, chairman of SilverCrest Asset Management Group, said on Friday.
"Then the state of consolidation will come to an end, maybe at the end of the month."
Investors will get another glimpse into the health of the technology sector when Texas Instruments Inc follows the lead of Intel Corp and provides a first-quarter update after the market closes on Monday.
The outlook for the quarter is generally rosy so far. First-quarter earnings for companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index are expected to rise 15 percent, according to data from Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.
That forecast is based partly on the fact that the number of companies raising forecasts in February was more than double the number that lowered outlooks, Reuters said.
Kroger Co, the largest US grocery chain, is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results on Tuesday.
Oracle Corp is slated to report results for its fiscal third-quarter on Thursday and results from National Semiconductor Corp are expected the same day. Energy company El Paso Corp also is due to report fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday.
But some say worry about the economy could temper enthusiasm about corporate profits.
On Friday, the government reported surprisingly weak employment figures for February. That threw some doubt on the health of the economy, which may cast a pall over bullish sentiment next week, analysts said.
"There might be a hangover from the weak employment report, said Joseph Keating, chief investment officer for AmSouth Bank in Birmingham, Alabama. "It causes us to question whether the strength is sustainable and causes people to begin to wonder how far out we can extrapolate the growth in earnings."
Because of that, investors may see the beginnings of a modest correction, he said.
At Friday's close, the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average was up 7.55 points, or 0.07 percent, at 10,595.55, while the broad Standard & Poor's 500 was up 1.99 points, or 0.17 percent, at 1,156.86. But the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 7.48 points, or 0.36 percent, to 2,047.63.
For the week, stocks rose. The Dow advanced 0.11 percent and the S&P 500 climbed 1.05 percent. The Nasdaq gained 0.9 percent, breaking a six-week string of declines.
Investors also will get a read on the job market and the mood of consumers from the government's reports on Thursday on weekly jobless claims and retail sales. Weekly claims for initial unemployment benefits are pegged at 345,000.
February retail sales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent overall and excluding autos, a gain of 0.5 percent is foreseen, according to economists polled by Reuters.
On Friday, the University of Michigan will give its preliminary read on March consumer sentiment, which is expected to inch up to 95.0 from 94.4 in February.