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Now heading into the middle innings of the fourth quarter earnings season, companies have once again outperformed relative to the Street’s expectations. However, this time around, the market has been less-than-impressed with the bottom-line beats. In fact, the Powershares QQQ Trust (NYSE: QQQQ) is down about 5% since Alcoa (NYSE: AA) unofficially rang in earnings season on Jan. 11. Within the technology space specifically, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), and IBM (NYSE: IBM) are a few examples of large cap techs that have fallen victim to the market’s weakness despite topping analysts’ profit projections. This week, the pace of earnings releases kicks into high gear. Below, we highlight a few of the names that will garner significant interest. And, as always, we strongly recommend that our readers review our free trading reports on the stocks mentioned in this article by clicking on the ticker symbols.

Flood Of New Handsets Should Boost Qualcomm

On Jan. 27, after the market closes, handset chip maker Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) is expected to report its 1Q10 results. The Street projects the company to report EPS of $0.56 on sales of $2.69 billion, which equates to year-over-year growth of 80% and 7%, respectively. Heading into its report, there are few positive trends and data points in its corner. The most prominent of these is that demand for existing handset models has been improving. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), with its front-running iPhone, is estimated to have sold 9-9.5 million smartphones in the quarter alone. Additionally, the launches of several brand new phones have been mostly well received by the market. QCOM, with its new ultra-fast “Snapdragon” chipset, is expected to be a clear beneficiary from this. Perhaps the most telling example was its win at GOOG for the Nexus One phone, which clearly validates QCOM’s technology and makes it a tier one chipset provider. Looking past this quarter to its March guidance, consensus estimates of $0.57 and $2.75 billion may be a bit light, which also bodes well for QCOM. A “beat and raise” quarter could boost shares back towards the $50 resistance level. For a more complete technical take on QCOM, please view our free report on the stock by clicking here.

Google To Rain On Netflix’ Parade?

On-line movie rental provider Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) will report its fourth quarter results on Jan. 27 after the close. Relative to consensus estimates, NFLX has been a top performer as it has beaten the EPS expectation for six straight quarters. However, of concern is that NFLX’s growth rates have slowed recently. For example, 3Q09 and 2Q09 revenue grew a tepid 3.6% and 3.7% versus 1Q09 and 4Q08 growth of 9.6% and 18.9%. Due to its strategy to move subscribers over to the high-margin instant streaming business, profit growth has remained strong, although that too has dipped somewhat. Besides the normal key metrics (subscriber adds, churn, sub acquisition costs), a major topic of interest will be GOOG’s announcement on Jan. 21 that it will experiment with offering movie rentals on YouTube. The amount of content will be limited initially, but this can certainly be viewed as a longer-term threat to NFLX’s business model. For readers interested in the technical aspects of NFLX’s stock, please click here to view our free trading report.

Demand For Security Software Holding Up

Cyber attacks, viruses, spy-ware and mal-ware are ever increasing and becomingly increasingly complex. This is a risk for every corporation, government entity, and institution. Because of this, Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) seems like a safe bet to enjoy solid demand for the foreseeable future. For this quarter, analysts are projecting it to report EPS of $0.37 on sales of $1.5 billion, a modest improvement of last quarter’s $0.36 and $1.47 billion. In terms of SYMC’s share performance, the stock has weakened along with the stock market over the past week, and is now bouncing off its 20-day moving average. Prior to this pull-back, SYMC had been in a steady uptrend since September. For a more detailed technical analysis, please check out our free trading report.