Earnings rush-hour is here...

The chase by Marty Cej:

There are few days in the calendar that investors get such a transparent view into their own portfolios as this. If you don't own shares in one of the Canadian companies reporting today, either through mutual funds, an ETF or outright, you probably aren't invested in Canada at all.

Among the companies we are focusing on today is Manulife, which reported its second-straight quarterly loss as near record-low interest rates continued to weigh on investment returns. Canada's biggest insurance company said it slumped to a net loss of $69 million, or 5 cents a share, from a profit of $1.8 billion, or 96 cents a share, a year earlier. The loss appears to be half the 10 cent-loss expected by analysts but due to the number of one-time charges and gains and adjustments for this and that, it's tough to determine whether the numbers are comparable. The company also said its chief financial officer, Michael Bell, is leaving the company.

BCE, Canada's biggest telecom company, said fourth-quarter profit rose to 62 cents a share from 59 cents a share a year ago, missing the average estimate by 4 cents. The company also reported revenue that came in just shy of analysts' forecasts as tougher competition in the key markets of Ontario and Quebec captured new customers.

The company said it sees fiscal 2012 earnings per share in the range of $3.13 to $3.18, compared with an average analyst estimate for profit of $3.20 a share. This is one of Canada's most competitive industries, one in which opponents are forging alliances in some businesses even as they fight tooth and nail to gain a slight advantage in others. Paul Bagnell has the file.

Other companies that have opened the books on their quarters today include Air Canada, Teck Resources, Great-West Lifeco, Precision Drilling, Cameco, Inmet, Shoppers Drug Mart, Cineplex, Canadian Tire and Husky Energy.

Ian Telfer is the Chairman of Goldcorp, Uranium One and the World Gold Council. He is also the target of OSC allegations that he acted contrary to the public interest by allowing a friend to purchase shares in a private company he was involved with using her brother-in-law's trading account. The OSC also alleges that Telfer schooled his friend in how to use BlackBerry PIN messages to avoid any paper trails that her employer, GMP Securities, might stumble upon. Telfer will address those allegations today at 2:30 p.m. ET.

John Taylor is the Chairman, CEO, CIO and Founder of FX Concepts, one of the world's biggest currency hedge fund, and he has a message for Greece: Get out, get out now! He justifies his is cri de coeur with this simple argument: "The self-serving cacophony from Euro-officials and Euro zone politicians arguing that you will be far worse outside the euro than in it are only promoting their own interests -- not yours." Leave the euro-zone, Taylor says, and "you will be free to choose your own course." In the meantime, Greece's leaders just agreed on an austerity package that they can now lay at the feet of the Troika like some mendicant before his medieval lord. Euro area finance ministers meet this afternoon. Taylor sits down with us at 10:30 a.m. ET.

U.S. stock futures are drifting lower after China's inflation unexpectedly accelerated in January, undermining optimism for more monetary easing for the world's economic growth engine. Economists point out, however, that a weeklong holiday to celebrate the Chinese New Year may have driven prices higher temporarily, an anomaly that allow monetary authorities to begin easing again in the months ahead. In Britain, the Bank of England increased its own monetary stimulus by raising its asset purchase target by 50 billion pounds to 325 billion pounds.

Stock movers today are likely to include Diamond Foods after the company said it will restate earnings for the past two years and ousted CEO Michael Mendes and its CFO for their roles in accounting for the payment of tens of millions of dollars to walnut growers. The news also puts in further jeopardy Diamond's $1.5 billion deal to buy Proctor & Gamble's Pringles unit.

Pepsico is likely to be active after the company said it would cut 8,200 jobs, or 3 percent of its global workforce.