NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bank of America (BAC.N), Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Citigroup (C.N) could be among companies that beat estimates when they report next week, Thomson Reuters StarMine forecasts show.

Bank of America's forecast by StarMine, which weights forecasts based on analyst accuracy and how recent the estimates are, is 18.4 percent above the consensus estimate, or the average of analysts' forecasts compiled by Thomson Reuters.

A forecast of at least 2 percent above consensus suggests the company is likely to post results above it, according to StarMine.

Goldman Sachs' forecast by StarMine is 2.8 percent above consensus, while Citigroup's forecast is 2.1 percent above, the data showed.

The companies are among 46 Standard & Poor's 500 (.SPX) components expected to report earnings next week.

On Friday, JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) reported earnings in line with Street estimates. But its stock fell 2.5 percent to $35.92.

Among companies StarMine data has identified as likely to disappoint next week are Freeport-McMoRan (FCX.N), with a StarMine forecast 3.2 percent below consensus, and Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB.O), with a StarMine forecast 4.1 percent below consensus.

The picks are based on comments by analysts who StarMine says have a strong history of being correct with their forecasts.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Members of the joint deficit reduction committee were expected to admit defeat in their quest for a budget-cutting deal later Monday, most likely after U.S. stock markets close for the day.

Still, several members of the panel huddled at midday in Massachusetts Democrat
John Kerry
's office in the Russell Senate Office Building to discuss last-ditch options. A senior Republican aide said the discussions were unlikely to produce a deal.

Under last summer's debt limit increase law (
PL 112-25
), the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction has until Nov. 23 to vote on a proposal. But as a practical matter, the panel must have an agreement by midnight Monday to meet a statutory requirement of 48 hours notice of any proposal.

If the panel fails to find at least $1.2 trillion in deficit savings, automatic spending cuts will be triggered, although they will not begin until January of 2013. Potential deals totaling both more and less than $1.2 trillion have been proposed and rejected by committee members in recent weeks.

The promise of automatic cuts absent a deficit committee agreement seems likely to curtail any major reaction in bond markets, although lawmakers may be nervous about a stock market slump. The panel's co-chairmen, Sen.
Patty Murray
, D-Wash., and Rep.
Jeb Hensarling
, R-Texas, appeared likely to issue a statement acknowledging the joint committee could not bridge deep partisan differences over curbing entitlement spending and raising tax revenue.

Lawmakers from the panel had fanned out on the Sunday talk shows, but the two sides evidently held no meetings Sunday. Some panel members exchanged views by telephone, according to aides. Up against the deadline for action, congressional leaders who were actively involved last week showed no sign of trying to broker a deal.

"No traction. Same as yesterday," one Senate GOP aide said Sunday.

The standoff in the committee mirrored the gap that divided Republicans and Democrats earlier in the year, leading to the breakdown of deficit reduction negotiations between President Obama and House Speaker
John A. Boehner
, R-Ohio. It was the collapse of those talks that ultimately led to the creation of the joint committee as a way to resolve the policy impasse.

As six members of the panel, including the co-chairmen, traded blame on the Sunday interview shows, it was clear that the $1.2 trillion in automatic, across-the-board spending cuts are now a fallback position to blunt the absence of a deficit deal.

Saving Defense

Republicans have already begun to look for ways to adjust the automatic cuts, known as a sequester, to soften their impact on the Pentagon.

The Defense Department is slated to shoulder half of the automatic cuts, amounting to $600 billion through 2012. The automatic cuts were enacted as part of the debt limit law, and intended to serve as a hammer to force the joint committee to act.

Defense Secretary
Leon E. Panetta
has warned that the sequester might reduce spending by an estimated 20 percent compared with projections sent to Congress in February. The result might require termination of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and reductions in the size of U.S. ground forces to pre-World War II levels.

Senate Minority Whip
Jon Kyl
, R-Ariz., a member of the joint committee, reiterated his opposition to such deep defense cuts in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

"We do have the opportunity, even if the committee fails to work around the sequester, so that we still have $1.2 trillion in savings over 10 years but it's not done in the very draconian way that Secretary Panetta is referring to," Kyl said.

Public Unhappiness

The apparent collapse of the joint committee's efforts is likely to add to the already low public opinion of Congress. In a survey released Nov. 14, Gallup found that 13 percent of respondents approve of Congress — a record low and a steady drop from the 24 percent approval rate recorded in May.

Gallup reported that if the joint committee does not reach an agreement, "these measures of the public's faith in Congress are likely to drop even lower," based on its earlier findings that the public wants Congress to reach a compromise.

The White House urged Congress on Sunday to exert fiscal discipline while defending Obama's decision to remain detached from the joint committee's negotiations after issuing recommendations to the panel two months ago.

"The president was engaged in daily discussions throughout the summer on how to reduce the deficit in a balanced way and in September he put forward a very detailed set of recommendations to the joint select committee to achieve deficit reduction well beyond the committee's mandate," White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said. "Avoiding accountability and kicking the can down the road is how Washington got into this deficit problem in the first place, so Congress needs to do its job here and make the kind of tough choices to live within its means that American families make every day."

The joint committee's odds of success have been declining for days. Most recently, Democrats rejected a Republican offer to go part way toward the deficit reduction goal with a $643 billion proposal that relied on cuts in domestic discretionary spending and non-health care mandatory programs to soften the impact of a sequester. Democrats dismissed the Republican offer on Nov. 18, insisting that any bipartisan plan would have to include significant tax revenue as well as spending cuts.

Several members of the panel met Nov. 19 in a last ditch effort to keep negotiations alive. But by Sunday, although lawmakers continued to insist that a deal was possible, they provided no signs that a breakthrough might be in the cards.

Many Offers, No Deals

Since the joint committee began meeting in early September, Democrats and Republicans on the panel have offered several proposals, including a $2.3 trillion plan by Senate Finance Chairman
Max Baucus
, D-Mont., and a $1.5 trillion proposal by Sen.
Patrick J. Toomey
, R-Pa.

Republicans have criticized Democrats for refusing to accept any spending cuts or substantive changes to entitlement programs without tax increases of a size that the GOP said would hurt the economy. Democrats have countered that Republicans refused to consider any steps that would ensure top earners provide a share of the savings through higher taxes — what they called a "balanced" solution.

Alan K. Ota and Joseph J. Schatz contributed to this story.

DOCUMENTS DUMPED: The Securities and Exchange Commission says some documents from preliminary investigations of major banks likely were destroyed under a former agency policy.

ATTORNEY’S ALLEGATIONS: An SEC attorney has alleged that the agency illegally destroyed records related to thousands of preliminary probes, including investigations of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and convicted swindler Bernard Madoff.

AGENCY SAYS NO PROBES HARMED: SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami said the agency doesn’t believe any current or future investigations were harmed by the policy, which allowed documents to be discarded in cases that were closed when staffers decided a formal probe wasn’t warranted. A review by the SEC inspector general is under way to determine if any law was violated.

WASHINGTON – The Securities and Exchange Commission has acknowledged that some documents from preliminary investigations of major banks and convicted swindler Bernard Madoff likely were destroyed under a former agency policy.

The SEC’s enforcement chief made the disclosure in a letter Wednesday to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Grassley had asked about allegations by an SEC attorney that the agency illegally destroyed records related to thousands of preliminary probes, including investigations of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Madoff.

Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami said the agency doesn’t believe any current or future investigations were harmed by the policy, which allowed documents to be discarded in cases that were closed when staffers decided a formal probe wasn’t warranted. A review by the SEC inspector general is under way to determine if any law was violated.

Khuzami said in the letter that the SEC has kept “significant information” related to all the “matters under inquiry,” even under the former policy on records.

“We believe the electronic … information that we retain allows staff to `connect the dots’ between current and closed matters,” Khuzami wrote to Grassley. The electronic information is searchable and allows SEC enforcement staff to identify potential relationships between individuals or entities, and between current and past inquiries, he said.

The information that was in documents that were discarded still may be available from sources inside or outside the SEC, Khuzami said. The agency’s current policy, adopted last year, requires all documents to be retained whether they are part of a preliminary probe that is closed or a formal investigation, Khuzami said. The current policy and practices meet the SEC’s legal obligations, he said.

The agency’s reputation has been battered by its failure to detect the massive Madoff fraud over nearly two decades and by other lapses.

Grassley, a longtime critic of the SEC, has expressed concern that the records destruction may have hurt the agency’s ability to pursue cases.

NEW YORK – Stock futures are edging up as Greece prepares to clear another hurdle to its debt rescue package.

Greek lawmakers are close to passing an austerity bill that will qualify the country for crucial bailout funds. The prospect of averting a widespread European debt crisis has sent markets higher for three straight days.

But stocks will likely close lower for the quarter at the end of a volatile three months.

Ahead of the opening, the Labor Department will also report on how many people applied for initial unemployment benefits last week.

Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 24 points, or 0.2 percent, at 12,242. Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures are up 2, or 0.2 percent, at 1,306. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 5, or 0.2 percent, at 2,299.

U.S. stock futures are pointing to a lower open a day after the markets broke a six-session losing streak.

Stocks have suffered this month as a raft of weak economic news dampened hopes about the pace of the global economic recovery. But shares rose Thursday after a report that U.S. exports hit a record in April. They are up about 20 percent over the past year.

Stocks are likely to mark their sixth down week in a row unless they recover sharply on Friday.

Ahead of the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures are down 37 points, or 0.3 percent, at 12,002. Standard & Poor’s 500 futures are down 4, or 0.3 percent, at 1,278. Nasdaq 100 futures are down 6, or 0.3 percent, at 2,243.

NEW YORK – A series of reports on the economy and corporate earnings will likely sway the stock and bond markets.

The Commerce Department is expected to report on Thursday that the economy grew at a 1.9 percent pace in the first three months of this year. A separate report will likely show that fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week, a sign that the job market is slowly recovering.

Exxon Mobil, Procter & Gamble and Viacom are also releasing earnings.

Ahead of the opening, Dow Jones industrial average futures are down 13, or 0.1 percent, at 12,628. Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures are down 1, or 0.1 percent, at 1,350.

Stocks hit highs for the year on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it would keep interest rates low for “an extended period.”

NEW YORK – Stocks look ready to push higher on better-than-expected earnings results from Apple Inc., General Electric Co. and Morgan Stanley.

General Electric and Morgan Stanley reported quarterly results Thursday morning that beat analysts’ expectations. Apple also beat estimates for both sales and profits. All three are up more than 3 percent in pre-market trading.

Better earnings drove the Dow Jones industrial average to a new 2011 high Wednesday.

The Labor Department will report on the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week. Economists expect applications fell, after an unexpected rise the previous week.

Dow futures are up 70 points, or 0.6 percent, at 12,466. S&P 500 futures are up 9 points, or 0.7 percent, at 1,337. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 27 points, or 1.1 percent, at 2,381.

SAN FRANCISCO – With so many investors becoming fans of the company, Facebook will be legally required to begin sharing more information about its finances and strategy by April 2012, according to documents distributed to prospective shareholders.

Some of the numbers that began trickling out Thursday were eye-popping — most notably a net profit margin of nearly 30 percent, much higher than most people had previously speculated.

The owner of the world’s largest Internet social network, privately held since it started in a Harvard University dorm room seven years ago, will be forced to open its books because it expects to have more than 500 shareholders at some point this year, according to a person who has reviewed the documents handed out Thursday. The person asked not to be identified because the documents are only being given to an elite group selected to buy a stake in Facebook through a fund packaged by the company’s newest investor, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Surpassing 500 shareholders will catapult Facebook over a hurdle likely to lead to the company’s long-awaited initial public offering of stock next year.

After a company with at least $10 million in assets has more than 500 shareholders, the Securities and Exchange Commission requires it to disclose its financial results and other details on a quarterly basis in an effort to ensure investors are adequately informed. The reporting requirement kicks in 120 days after the fiscal year in which a company exceeds the shareholder threshold for the first time.

Facebook’s fiscal year ends Dec. 31, meaning it would have until late April 2012 to comply.

The company, now based in Palo Alto, could still retain a private ownership structure, but an IPO is the more probable scenario given Facebook will have to make many of the same disclosures of a publicly traded company anyway.

But Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, 26, has been in no hurry to take the company public, partly because he hoped to preserve a free-wheeling culture. Some analysts also think Zuckerberg, named Time magazine’s person of the year for 2010, wanted to avoid the public limelight so he would have more time to mature as a leader.

To help keep the company private, Facebook sought and received an SEC exemption in 2008 that assured employees who received a class of stock wouldn’t be counted toward the 500-shareholder barrier. The stock awarded those employees won’t be issued until an IPO or sale of the company occurs, another factor that will pressure Zuckerberg to drop his resistance to an IPO. Zuckerberg owns about a 25 percent stake in Facebook.

Facebook spokesman Jonathan Thaw declined to comment Thursday.

Crossing the 500-shareholder barrier prompted Google to pursue its IPO in 2004 before the Internet search leader had turned six years old.

If Facebook follows a similar timeline as Google did, its IPO would probably occur during the summer of 2012.

Some of Facebook’s financial information is being shared for the first time as part of the exclusive stock offering that Goldman Sachs put together in an effort to raise $1.5 billion. The minimum investment in the fund is $2 million, although some exceptions are being made for Goldman’s own partners.

Some of the numbers emerging in the limited stock offering help explain why Goldman Sachs itself decided to ante up $450 million for a less than 1 percent stake in Facebook earlier this week. The investment valued Facebook at $50 billion, more than twice the current market value of Internet pioneer Yahoo Inc.

Through the first nine months of last year, Facebook earned $355 million on revenue of $1.2 billion, according to the person who reviewed the offering document. That 30 percent profit margin is in the same range as that enjoyed by Google, which posted net income of nearly $6 billion on revenue of $29.9 billion through the first nine months of 2010. Facebook produced a similar profit margin in 2009, too, with net income of $220 million on revenue of $777 million, according to the person who had seen the Goldman Sachs documents.

Like Google, Facebook is making most of its money so far by selling advertising. Facebook has emerged as a marketing magnet because it now has more than 500 million users worldwide, and the company knows a lot about them because its audience shares so much information about their interests on the website. More than 30 billion links, notes, photos and other types of content get posted on Facebook each month.

As impressive as Facebook’s growth has been, just how much the business is worth remains a hotly debated topic.

The $50 billion market value implied in Goldman Sachs’ investment is 25 times higher than the $2 billion in revenue that analysts believe the company had last year. Google, the Internet’s biggest moneymaker so far, ended Thursday with a market value of $196 billion, about seven times its annual revenue.