Anxious investors await release of results

NEXT week's flood of corporate earnings may offer the ailing US stock market some relief, if not a cure, after a brutal sell-off that drove stocks to their lowest levels in nearly five years.

Investors, unnerved by months of virtually relentless declines, are searching for any signs that the bear market is ready to head back into hibernation.

The earnings season is set to heat up in what will be one of the busiest weeks of the second-quarter reporting period, with about two-thirds of the companies in the Standard & Poors 500 index set to issue results over the next two weeks.