This from MarketWatch:

Concerns about the impact of the credit crisis and the weak economy will come into sharp focus next week, with investors set for a flood of earnings from ailing financials as well as the technology sector.

Earnings results in focus include financials Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Washington Mutual and tech bellwethers Intel and Google.

Investors, so far, have managed considerable optimism in the face of the credit crisis and its effects.

“Hope springs eternal on Wall Street,” says Justice Litle.

“But… the consumer effects of the housing bust are still in early days. Bankruptcies jumped 30% in March, with the sharpest rise in uber-bubble states like California, Nevada and Florida.

“In Orange Country, as many as six out of ten new buyers could be ‘upside down,’ meaning the size of the mortgage exceeds the value of the house. Time magazine talks of the first ‘Starbucks recession,’ in which belts are being tightened enough to pass up that $4 cup of joe. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz reports that, ‘For the first time in our history as a company, we have negative traffic this year vs. last.’”