Earnings Preview: American Express Company (AXP), Capital One Financial Corp (COF), Intel Corporation (INTC)

Investors will be hoping to see an improvement in Intel’s profitability, as the company’s operating margin fell to 28.5% during the third quarter 2012 compared to a significantly higher 33.6% during third quarter 2011. Analysts at boutique firm Maxim Group believe margins are approaching a bottom, and recommends that clients begin to accumulate shares on the above basis.

The $110 billion dollar company has seen its market capitalization fall beneath that of technology compatriot QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM)​ , which continues to drive innovation in the mobile technology chip space. Shares of Qualcomm have risen 2% since I published The Troll at the Gate: Why This Company is the Clear Winner in Smartphones on November 30.

Investors were disappointed with Intel’s latest Atom mobile chip offering at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and feel that Intel isn’t competing as it should. Despite Qualcomm continuing to hold its market share in mobile, I believe Intel Corporation is attractive on a valuation basis and the company should remain dominant in the PC server market.

Reviewing This Morning’s Economic Data

On the economic front, the U.S. Census Bureau released new residential construction statistics (“housing starts”) for December earlier this morning at 8:30 a.m. The fluctuation in monthly data continued, albeit in a positive way. Housing starts rose a seasonally adjusted 12.1% in December, having decreased 3.0% for November. The trend seems to be stabilizing, however, as housing starts have now risen in three of the last four months when considering data from September and October. Readers can view the Census Bureau release in its entirety here.

The U.S. Department of Labor also released its weekly jobless claims data this morning. For the week ending January 12, the advance figure of initial claims fell to 335,000. This is 10 percent decrease from the prior week’s adjusted figure of 372,000. To put the current unemployment data in perspective, the number of claims surged above 600k during the 2008-09 recession, and in recent months have been in a range between 350k and 400k. Readers view the official DOL release here.

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