Here in Richmond, Virginia the thermometer has been testing its all-time highs with readings in triple digits and at some point it was around 113 degrees a week and a half ago.  With the hot, humid weather now the norm, it means we are full-force in the summer season.  As well, it means that the second quarter has come to a close, and therefore another season is upon us -- that of earnings. As you know, we are faced with this event four times a year -- and the time is upon us for the third time in 2012 as we approach the middle of July.

The second half of this month and into the first part of August represents the heart of earnings season, with the majority of companies due to release their earnings reports for the 2nd quarter of 2012.  As has become tradition, Alcoa (AA) kicked things off last week and to this point we have had a minimal number of the S&P 500 companies reporting.  This means that there are plenty of companies still due to report their earnings over the course of the next few weeks, (especially during the next two weeks), and this always tends to makes things interesting.

Below we have selected a number of better-known companies with material weightings in various ETFs that are scheduled to release their earnings this week.  We have all witnessed the effects that earnings reports can have on the stock price of any given company, which can overflow into the ETFs which they underlie.  By consulting the table below, we can clearly see that some of these ETFs have more significant weightings than others, which means that they have the potential of being impacted by the results of earnings more than others.  For instance, the Vanguard Telecommunication Services (VOX) currently has about 22.5% weighting in Verizon.  So it won't be unusual for the stocks and ETF to be volatile over the next few days.  To find out if the ETFs that you hold have a significant weighting in any stock, simply put in the ETF symbol in the "Enter ETF Symbol" box on the top of the AllETF.com page, and it will instantly show you all of the holdings in that particular ETF.