NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Starting Monday, Wall Street is going to be awash in earnings reports -- and investors trying to make sense of them.

The earnings season kicked off badly, when Alcoa posted fourth-quarter results that were far worse than expected, but the overall earnings picture looks like it could be kind for the market. Analysts are expecting an 11 percent increase in earnings from a year ago, the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year earnings growth, following five consecutive quarters of declines. What's more, profit warnings have been on the light side this time around. That is often a sign that earnings will come in significantly better than expected.

So which reports should you focus on? If you're a market junkie like we are, the answer is easy: All of them. If, on the other hand, you have a life, take a look at these seven reports and let the rest of the earnings noise pass you by.

Companies to watch: Intel; FleetBoston; General Motors; Sears; Microsoft; IBM; General Electric.

Intel (INTC: Research, Estimates) reports late Tuesday. The chipmaker caused a little flurry of excitement in early December when it said that it expected better revenues for its latest quarter than it had previously forecast.

But Intel's shares have slipped since then and just this past Wednesday a company official was quoted as saying Intel expects the sales environment to be tough through the first half of this year. Maybe that was just an attempt to curb investor enthusiasm and set the stage for positive surprises -- many analysts expect a long-overdue upgrade cycle to boost computer sales in 2003 and the Semiconductor Industry Association forecasts chip sales will increase by 20 percent.

Why it matters: The world's largest chipmaker, Intel can serve as a proxy for the entire computer hardware sector.

Analysts think that Intel earned 14 cents a share in its latest quarter, compared to 15 cents a year earlier

For FleetBoston (FBF: Research, Estimates), which reports before the open on Thursday, 2002 was a year to forget. The nation's seventh-biggest bank was forced to shutter Robertson Stephens after it was unable to find a buyer for the once-hot investment house. It's had to take a big write-off of its Argentine loan portfolio. The election of the left-wing Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil raised the specter of a Brazilian default, and more loan worries for Fleet. Friday the bank said that it added another $350 million in loan provisions for the ailing airline and energy industries for the fourth quarter

Another year like that, and Fleet would be in mortal danger. Fortunately for Fleet, a repeat of such a horrible year seems unlikely. Still, Fleet has been badly weakened, and many investors expect it to be swallowed up by some larger competitor. The problem with that, however, is that Fleet's larger competitors have problems of their own.

Why it matters: If the banking sector has the sniffles, Fleet has the flu. If it can return to health, that will be a good sign for the entire industry. And if it does end up getting taken over, that could indicate that banks are getting back into the merger game.

Analysts expect Fleet to have earned 57 cents a share (excluding those new loan provisions) versus 3 cents in the year-ago period.

Investors worry that General Motors (GM: Research, Estimates), scheduled to report earnings Thursday morning, has become a zero-percent addict.

Early this month the No. 1 car maker said (again) that it planned to offer new cash rebates and interest-free loan incentives in an extension of its efforts to boost sales and take market share. To some it looks like a demolition derby, with GM bearing down on the badly battered Ford in a bid to be the last independent U.S. automaker whose engine still runs at the end of the day. Such games can be dangerous. It may have gotten to the point where U.S. consumers simply expect rebates and zero-percent financing plans. Take them away, and sales will suffer. Leave them in place, and profit margins are permanently compressed.

GM has also had its share of pension woes. Thursday the company said underfunding of its pension plan soared to $19.3 billion at the end of 2002, more than double the $9.1 billion underfunding a year earlier, as the plans' assets lost 7 percent of value due to stock market declines. GM said its pension expense should be about $3 billion before taxes in 2003, up from $1 billion before taxes in 2002. As a result, GM expects to earn just $5 a share in 2003 versus an estimated $6.54 in 2002.

Why it matters: In the 1950s, GM Chairman "Engine Charlie" Wilson used to say, "What's good for GM is good for America." As the United States switched from a smokestack to a service economy that became less true, but the nation's manufacturers remain heavily dependent on GM. If the big car company can't turn it around, neither could they.

Analysts expect GM to report it earned $1.54 per share in the latest quarter, compared with 60 cents a share in the year-earlier period.

The softer side of Sears (S: Research, Estimates)? Lately the department store, due to report Thursday morning, has been showing nothing but soft underbelly.

The last time Sears reported results, back in October, it missed already-lowered expectations badly and sent its shares tumbling. Sears had run into credit-card trouble, extending its MasterCard to many customers whose ability to pay back their debt didn't keep pace with their ability to run it up. The result was that Sears had to add $189 million to its reserve for bad loans, accounting for much of the earnings miss.

On top of that, sales are suffering. Thursday Sears said that same-store sales -- sales at stores open for a year or more -- fell 4.6 percent in December. That wasn't quite so bad as Wall Street expected. But still...

Why it matters: Of the nation's major retailers, Sears is perhaps the one most at risk. Some of that has to do with its credit card woes, some with problems with the department store model, but mostly it's about difficult economic times. If Sears can fight its way to health, that will be a sign of an economy on the mend.

Analysts expect Sears earned $1.94 a share for its latest quarter, compared with $2.02 a year ago.

Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates) -- everybody's favorite 800-pound gorilla -- posts results after the close Thursday. As a company, the software maker has done remarkably well during the three-year tech wreck, continuing to grow earnings and revenues (albeit not at the 1990s go-go pace). But its stock has suffered mightily, falling by more than half since early 2000. Part of that was its drawn-out legal battle, but mostly it was investors deciding that the Microsoft of the future wasn't going to grow as quickly as the Microsoft of the past.

And now? Microsoft still trades at a rich P/E -- 29 times 2002 earnings. That seems expensive given that profits are only expected to grow by 4.7 percent this year. But Microsoft could do better than the analysts think. Many companies are still relying on the computers and servers they bought ahead of the year 2000. The dominant operating systems during that Y2K buildout were Microsoft's Windows 98 and NT 4.0. On June 30 next year both are going to enter what Microsoft calls the "non-supported phase" (translation: Don't call Microsoft with your problems). That could lead to a meaningful (though perhaps just temporary) bump in Microsoft's sales.

Why it matters: With the second-highest market capitalization, Microsoft is widely held by U.S. investors. One of the so-called "four horsemen" during the go-go years (the others were Intel, Cisco and Oracle) it has been the least scathed by the tech rout.

Analysts polled by Multex expect Microsoft to report earnings of 47 cents a share compared to 49 cents in 2001's fourth quarter.

IBM (IBM: Research, Estimates), which reports after the close Thursday, is trying to keep up with the times. Investors want to know if the company will be able to pull off.

When most of us think of IBM, we think of HAL-sized mainframes, Deep Blue, and personal computers, but over the past year it has been scuttling its hardware operations, focusing on its services and software businesses. To that end, it's been on something of a buying binge lately, acquiring companies like Rational Software and the consulting business of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Seems like a great plan, given that computer hardware is acting more and more like a commodity. But there is a world of difference between saying you're going to do something and actually doing it. IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano is still rather untested, and investors remember that while the company has made some terrifically good moves in its past, it's also made some terrifically bad ones.

Why it matters: The leading edge of technology is moving away from hardware to software and services. Will today's leaders will be able to keep pace with that change, or are tomorrow's tech juggernauts still nascent, walking around in people's heads, getting cooked up in the nations' garages? Big Blue could provide the blueprint for where we're headed.

Analysts expect IBM earned $1.30 a share in its latest quarter, compared with $1.33 in the year-ago period.

It used to be that investors always knew exactly what to expect when General Electric (GE: Research, Estimates) reported earnings: It would beat estimates by one penny a share, and promise to continue to give them steady growth, year in and year out.

And heck, maybe GE will beat by a penny when it reports Friday -- but it seems unlikely that the promise of a return to the old growth will still be there. Although GE's results held up well initially, the lousy business environment eventually caught up with it. In particular, the customers of its the power and jet divisions, which accounted for about a quarter of GE's sales in 2001, have fallen on hard times. It could be a long time before the company is able to post substantial profits growth.

Why it matters: GE is the world's most highly capitalized company, and it does just about everything -- from making lightbulbs, to financing new companies, to building jet engines, to making CAT scan machines.

Analysts expect GE earned 31 cents a share in the fourth quarter of 2002, compared with 2001's 39 cents.