Fed chairman to speak

This week, a number of economic reports will be released, including the producer price index report and the retail sales report. Investors will examine the data released and attempt to determine how quickly the economy is slowing. If economic reports in the next few weeks are weaker than expected, fear of a recession might rise. \nFederal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will deliver his semi-annual state of the economy speech to Congress Tuesday. Economists expect Greenspan to announce that the economy looks weak and that growth is slowing. The Federal Reserve does not meet again until March 20, but many on Wall Street are already calling for another interest rate cut.\nReporting Earnings\nThis week, Applied Materials, Ciena, Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, NBC Internet, Nextel Communications and Novell are expected to release earnings. \nLast Week\nThe Nasdaq Composite Index closed down 91.10 points at 2470.96 Friday. The Nasdaq was down more than 7 percent for the week and has now erased all of its gains for the year. At one point in January, the Nasdaq was up 16 percent.\n The Dow Jones Industrial Average was also down Friday, losing 99.10 points to close at 10781.45. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is now five points below where it began the year. \nStock News\nKPMG Consulting, Inc. announced Thursday the initial public offering of 112.5 million shares of its common stock at a per share price of $18. KPMG Consulting was separated from the accounting firm KPMG LLP. Earlier in the week, KPMG Consulting announced that its revenue rose 3 percent to $703 million.\nCisco Systems reported earnings of 18 cents a share Tuesday. According to Thompson/First Call, analysts had been expecting the company to earn 19 cents a share. In a conference call with investors, CEO John Chambers said, "This quarter was even more challenging than we originally anticipated in light of the abrupt economic slowdown in the U.S. and the dramatic slowing of capital spending in the search provider marketplace." Shares of Cisco are down 21 percent since their earnings announcement.\nMotorola Inc. joined the list of companies reducing part of their workforce, announcing Friday that they would cut as many as 4,000 jobs. This is the third time Motorola has eliminated jobs in the past 10 weeks. Motorola said the reductions are aimed at boosting efficiency and increasing profitability.\nFinal Note\nCisco's earnings shortfall may have set the market tone for the next few weeks of trading. Investors must now wonder how this economic downturn will affect companies' bottom lines.