NEW YORK, Oct 20: Stocks are poised to slip in the week ahead with the flood of earnings expected to yield little good news, while uncertainty over the war in Afghanistan and fear of more attacks on the United States will keep investors on edge.

Major stock market gauges fell during the week, and analysts say that trend will continue over the next two weeks as investors get more confirmation of what is expected to be the worst quarter for corporate profits in a decade.

Earnings could take a back seat, however, to geopolitical events as the United States embarks on a ground assault in Afghanistan and Americans brace for the possibility of more assaults on U.S. soil after the attacks on New York and Washington last month that killed more than 5,000 people.

There’s more uncertainty as you have guys on the ground, less support from earnings than what we’re experiencing now, and maybe the reality of the weakness in the fourth quarter starting to weigh a little more on the market, said Jon Brorson, director of equities at Northern Trust.

A fresh batch of blue-chip firms are scheduled to issue quarterly scorecards this week, including financial services giant American Express Co., while Compaq Computer tops the list of high-tech firms reporting.

Wall Street also will be looking out for the latest economic reports, including the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, its anecdotal take on the US economy, as well as durable goods data and weekly jobless claims figures.

Stocks gave up ground for the week, eroding the sharp rebound Wall Street made in recent weeks after taking a nosedive the week after the Sept. 11 attacks. The broad Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 1.7 per cent for the week, while the tech-packed Nasdaq Composite fell 1.9 per cent, and the Dow Jones industrial average slipped 1.5 per cent.

Quarterly results from blue-chip heavyweights like computer maker International Business Machines Corp. and Intel Corp. came in; while far from rosy, these results matched analysts’ expectations and helped underpin the market.

Americans are on edge after a slew of anthrax scares around the world last week, fanning fears of a bioterrorist attack, as the number of people exposed to the potentially deadly bacteria climbed in the United States.

But we know it’s not all going to be positive, and when there is a negative event, the market will sell, and it will sell hard, he added.

All that comes amid one of the busiest weeks of the earnings reporting period, with roughly 160 companies in the S&P 500 slated to release their results, according to earnings tracking firm Thomson Financial/First Call. Nearly half of all of the reports from those 500 companies are now in.

Third-quarter earnings are expected to fall 22.4 per cent, their biggest quarterly drop since the second quarter of 1991, Thomson Financial said.

I don’t think we’re going to get anything that’s real encouraging, said Jeff Kleintop, chief investment strategist at PNC Advisors, although he added that most companies’ forecasts had already been discounted by Wall Street.

Aside from American Express, other blue-chip firms scheduled to issue results are Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co., Eastman Kodak and DuPont Co.

In the technology and telecommunications sectors, Compaq Computer, JDS Uniphase Corp. and Lucent Technologies are set to release quarterly figures.—Reuters