Earnings Expectations for the Week of April 23 (AAPL, XOM, UPS)

Apple

seems to be in a sphere all by itself these days, and its fiscal second-quarter results no doubt will be the highlight of the earnings reports due this week. However, others also on tap this week to share their results for the most recent quarter include Amazon.com

, Caterpillar

, Exxon Mobil

, Starbucks

, United Parcel Service

and many others.

In its Tuesday report, earnings from the Mac, iPod and iPhone maker are estimated to be $10.00 per share for the second quarter. That would be a year-over-year increase of 36.0%. And note that 60 days ago the consensus EPS estimate was just $9.42. Revenues are expected to total $36.6 billion, or to be 48.5% higher than last year's second quarter. And so far, for the current quarter, EPS are expected be 21.5% higher and sales up 30.8% year over year. Apple has only fallen short of analysts' EPS estimates in one of the past ten quarters, and beat the consensus EPS forecast by 36.5% in the fiscal first quarter.

Arguably the world's largest publicly traded energy company is expected to say that its first-quarter 2012 earnings have fallen seven cents per share from a year ago to $2.07. But that EPS estimate has risen from $1.97 some 30 days ago. And analysts anticipate revenues for the quarter will have increased 11.5% to $127.1 billion. Note though that results in the current quarter are only expected to be marginally higher than these first-quarter estimates. The company is scheduled to share its results Thursday morning.

On Thursday, this economic bellwether is expected to announce that its first-quarter earnings came to $1.01 per share on revenues of $13.3 billion. That would be up from $0.91 per share and $12.6 billion in the same period of last year. And so far analysts also anticipate sequential and year-over-year growth of EPS and revenue in the current quarter. Note that analysts have underestimated per-share earnings of this Atlanta-based package delivery giant in the past eight quarters.

Seattle-based online retailer Amazon.com's first-quarter earnings in its Thursday report are forecast to be 84.1% lower than a year ago to $0.07 per share. That estimate has not changed over the past 30 days, but the company did fall short of consensus EPS estimates in three of the past seven quarters. However, revenues are expected to be up 30.5% from a year ago to $12.9 billion. So far, revenues are expected to be $12.8 billion in the second quarter, or pretty much flat sequentially.

First-quarter 2012 earnings for this Peoria, Ill.-based S&P 500 component are estimated to total $2.13 per share on revenues of $16.2 billion in Wednesday morning's report. In the same quarter of last year, the heavy-equipment maker posted $1.84 per share and $12.9 billion. Per-share earnings have only missed the consensus estimate in one of the past six quarters. So far, analysts also foresee sequential and year-over-year growth in both EPS and revenue in the current quarter.

The consensus forecast for Starbucks -- shares of which have pulled back about 4% from a recent all-time high -- calls for a profit of $0.39 per share on revenues of $3.2 billion. That would be an increase from $0.34 per share earnings and sales of $2.8 billion in the fiscal second quarter of last year. The current EPS estimate has not changed in the past 60 days, and the consensus forecast has come within a penny or two of EPS results in the past four quarters. The company is scheduled to announce its results Thursday afternoon.

This week, analysts anticipate double-digit percentage EPS growth from the likes of Boeing

, Coach

, ConocoPhillips

, Hershey

, Harley-Davidson

and Time Warner Cable

. They also expect year-over-year earnings growth from Chevron

, Colgate-Palmolive

, Norfolk Southern

and Merck

. Per-share earnings from AT&T

, Kellogg

, Safeway

and 3M

are expected to be about the same as a year ago. But earnings declines are forecast for Aetna

, Dow Chemical

, Eli Lilly

, Hasbro

, Pepsico

and Procter & Gamble

. And both Netflix

and Sprint-Nextel

are expected to post a net loss.