MARKET SNAPSHOT: Earnings, ECB Highlight Holiday-shortened Week

By Tom Bemis, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch)--A holiday-shortened trading week will see a heavy surge of earnings reports and a widely watched meeting of the European Central Bank.

U.S. equity markets will be closed Monday for Martin Luther King Day.

When trading resumes Tuesday, attention will likely be focused on latest earnings reports from big players in the financial, pharmaceutical and tech sectors.

Morgan Stanley (MS) is expected to report earnings of 56 cents a share, Tuesday morning, according to a survey of analysts by FactSet. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) is forecast to make $1.25 a share when it reports before the bell on Tuesday.

On Tuesday afternoon, IBM (IBM) and Netflix (NFLX) will offer their latest results. IBM is seen reporting earnings of $5.44 a share, while Netflix is expected to post results of 45 cents a share for the latest period, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Other notable earnings due in the week ahead include Dow Jones Industrial Average components American Express (AXP) on Wednesday afternoon, Travelers (TRV) on Thursday morning and General Electric (GE) and McDonalds (MCD) on Friday morning.

In addition to earnings, investors are likely to focus on the latest action from the European Central Bank. The bank's governing council will meet Thursday in Frankfurt with a news conference to follow with ECB President Mario Draghi.

The Swiss National Bank's unexpected move to abandon the Swiss franc's peg to the euro last week is bound to come up for discussion, as are prospects for ECB efforts to jump start Europe's sputtering economies.

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