It’s a juicy time of the year right now for Wall Street with thousands of companies releasing earnings in the next few weeks that will either disappoint investors or help to allay their fears of the companies they cover.

It’s no different for us, as 4 of the companies that I cover either have reported, or are set to report earnings within a couple of weeks of each other.

Today we’re going to preview PeakStocks.com portfolio recommendation AuthenTec Inc. (Nasdaq: AUTH), which will be announcing their second quarter earnings and host their analyst conference call after the market closes on Monday July 28th, 2008.

In this post I’ll go over the important aspects that we need to be aware of before they announce earnings and then break them down into the following parameters:

• What went right in the quarter: What were some of the positive developments that occurred within the company in the last 3 months.
• What went wrong in the quarter: What were some of the negative developments that occurred within the company in the last 3 months.
• What I want to see: All things considered, what I realistically want to see from the company as it relates to their business.
• What we need to see: At the minimum, what we need to see for our investing thesis to still hold and an investment in this company to be prudent.
• What we’ll probably see: After weighing what’s been going on for the last 3 months, what we can realistically expect when they do announce their earnings.
• Bottom Line: What it all means, and what you should do.

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Early next week I’ll have the pleasure of speaking with Matt O’Connell and Henry Dubois, the CEO and CFO of GeoEye, Inc. (Nasdaq: GEOY) respectively, in a recorded audio format.

The interview will cover a broad range of topics from what GeoEye does, to the launch of GeoEye-1 and GeoEye’s upcoming prospects in the satellite mapping industry.

(Update: listen to my EXCLUSIVE interview with GeoEye’s management team here.)

I wanted to take this opportunity to reach out to those who might not ever have this kind of access to inside management at a company like GeoEye, and see if there were any specific questions that YOU would like to ask.

I know that when it comes to GeoEye the stock and the company, there is a lot of confusion out there, and misinformation both in the retail trading environment as well as on Wall Street.

This will be your chance to get to know the management team at GeoEye and hear, in their own words, exactly what’s going on, and what we can expect in the months and years to come.

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There’s nothing that I could say to start off this post that would clarify AAR’s position in their market right now better than what CEO David Storch said to start the 4th quarter and full year 2008 earnings conference call:

“Based on questions we have been receiving over the last several weeks, we believe the market may not fully appreciate the spread of business we have here at AAR.

In many quarters we are merely seen as an airline aftermarket provider. While that was more true earlier in the decade, today AAR is a much broader company servicing a wider customer base.”

Therein lies the beauty of the diversification in AAR’s business, and their ability to leverage that business, even in tough times like now, to come out stronger and better positioned to take market share from competitors, as well as capitalize on their growing revenue to defense and overseas customers.

AAR Corp. (NYSE: AIR), provides products and services to the aviation, aerospace, and defense industries worldwide.

In this post I’ll be breaking down their full earnings release, as well as analyst conference call, and round out my post with the reasoning behind my upgrade.

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GeoEye, Inc. (Nasdaq: GEOY), a provider of space-based and aerial imagery and geospatial information, today provided an update on the upcoming launch of their latest satellite, GeoEye-1.

Once launched, GeoEye-1 will be the world’s highest resolution commercial earth-imaging satellite and propel GeoEye to higher revenues, earnings and exposure as GeoEye-1’s imagery will be used in all sorts of applications, the least of which is by Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) on Google Earth and Maps, Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) and other online portals.

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A precipitous drop in share price of some of the stocks that I have, and will continue to recommend, on PeakStocks.com is not uncommon.

In fact, on my Investing Style page, I outline the risk factors that come with investing in these types of stocks, and the fact that you have to be prepared to lose 50% of your investment in rapid fire succession.

Most of these names are usually thinly traded, have small market caps, and can be influenced through various events, most of which have nothing at all to do with the actual company and its operations or financial condition.

The same can be said of the latest share price decline in uWink (Nasdaq: UWKI.OB).

uWink is an entertainment and hospitality software development company that develops casual, interactive, social games, in addition to licensing the rights to those games and their proprietary touch-screen ordering and gaming interface to restaurants, entertainment venues and the hospitality industry.

uWink also owns and operates several restaurants under the uWink brand name that utilize this technology.

The stock has plummeted from about $1.40 to about $.80 as of Friday, with no apparent news, or rhyme or reason to the price fluctuation.

So what’s going on with uWink’s stock?

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What:

I think it’s time you take a serious look at PeakStocks.com portfolio recommendation AuthenTec (Nasdaq: AUTH), the world’s leading provider of fingerprint sensors and solutions to the wireless, PC and Access Control markets.

I am initiating the Fourth (4) BUY recommendation of AuthenTec at or around $10.00 per share.

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I think it’s time you take a look at PeakStocks.com portfolio recommendation AuthenTec (Nasdaq: AUTH), the world’s leading provider of fingerprint sensors and solutions to the wireless, PC and Access Control markets.

AuthenTec has continued to execute their business strategy, has introduced several new products to the market, and is is looking very reasonably priced at these levels.

All of this adds up to a tantalizing stock that should be added to your portfolio on any additional weakness, and as a result of the current market turmoil.

Here’s why:

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It looks like there will be one less distraction for management at SoundBite Communications (NASDAQ: SDBT), a leading provider of on-demand customer contact solutions that include Automated Voice Messaging, Text Messaging, and other customer contact solutions.

After the market closed on June 25th, 2008, SoundBite announced that they reached a settlement agreement with Universal Recovery Systems, Inc. (URS), the owner of the Universal Systems Right Party Contact Solution, a patented approach to maximizing right party contacts.

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While a rising tide lifts all boats, the opposite also holds true.

Such has been the case with PeakStocks.com portfolio recommendation AAR Corp. (NYSE: AIR), which provides products and services to the aviation, aerospace, and defense industries.

Lately the words “aviation”, “aerospace” and “defense” have been about as popular as uttering the phrase “oil prices are higher”.

You can’t always escape the boom or the hammer that befalls a certain industry or sector, even if it appears that AAR is more protected from these concerns than other companies within its industry.

As a result of this and AAR’s upcoming earnings release in about 2 weeks, I am downgrading AAR’s shares to a HOLD if only temporarily, and for new money, until we get more clarification as to what’s going on with the industry, the companies that depend on AAR for business, and AAR’s business prospects for their 2009 fiscal year.

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The recent market turmoil has given us a wonderful opportunity to nab stocks on the cheap.

Today I wanted to give you a heads up on some of the stocks that I was watching for possible inclusion into the PeakStocks.com portfolio, specifically ones that are high on my list, and most likely to be added as formal recommendations in the weeks to come as they reach desirable price points, and present wonderful opportunities for long term investors.

Note that these aren’t yet formal recommendations, I have more due diligence that I have to perform on them, but they are compelling enough with the research that I have done to be at the absolute top of my list.
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