Bank earnings, data to call shots for stocks

By Ellis Mnyandu

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With Wall Street's rally stalled, next week could be crunch time as big banks' earnings, including Citigroup's (C.N), roll in and investors scrutinize reams of economic data for clues on the recovery.

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Intel Corp (INTC.O), and General Electric (GE.N) are among several Dow components due to post their quarterly scorecards in the coming week. Their outlooks may shed light on whether the much anticipated economic revival has legs.

The economic calendar has plenty of indicators for investors to chew on, including June retail sales, the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index, industrial production, weekly jobless claims and housing starts.

Any negative surprise will add fuel to what is shaping up to be the market's first significant pullback since the Standard & Poor's 500 broke away from a 12-year closing low in early March.

"It looks to me like the market might be vulnerable to a correction," said Richard Sparks, senior equities analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati.

"Earnings are probably the key factor next week. People are going to be looking to see if there's any mention of a turnaround in earnings."

This past week, the U.S. stock market exhibited high anxiety about the start of the latest earnings season.

The market drifted lower and broke through key technical support despite Alcoa Inc (AA.N) kicking off the reporting season on Wednesday with a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss.