Donald Trump has said he thinks quarterly earnings are a waste of time. There hasn’t been a huge groundswell of support to releasing corporate earnings, say, twice a year.
So the ritual of companies releasing earnings reports and holding earnings call is still on, and this week reports of results from the third quarter kick into a higher gear.
The releases come out. They’re followed by analyst calls that hopefully enlighten investors about where companies are headed. Investors use that perspective to adjust portfolios.
The context for the third quarter may be a bit jittery. Stocks tumbled for most of last week, especially on Friday when President Trump threatened raise tariffs on Chinese imports to the United States by 100% in a move to get China to negotiate a trade deal.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 879 points, or nearly 2%, on the day. The Standard & Poor’s 500 dropped 2.7%, and the Nasdaq Composite slumped 3.6%. All the major averages fell 2.3% or more on the week.
The slump came as there was increasing talk that artificial intelligence spending was looking like a bubble emerging along with continued worries about trade disputes.
Tariffs notwithstanding, Wall Street has been bullish all year because of bullish tech spending plans, lower taxes and lower regulation. Analysts have raising year-end targets for the S&P 500 and beginning to pencil in bullish thoughts for 2026.
Futures trading on Sunday says, in fact, that U.S. stocks should open higher on Monday, but any unfavorable trade news could weigh on markets.
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This week’s reports are overwhelmingly coming from financial companies — banks, money managers, credit-card companies.
The group forms the biggest part of the Standard & Poor 500 Financial Sector, which has 75 components.
JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs lead things off on Tuesday morning.
On Wednesday, financial giants Bank of America and Morgan Stanley report. Thursday includes Charles Schwab and Bank of New York Mellon. Friday’s reports will come from American Express, Truist Financial and financial services company State Street.
The financial sector is up 7.87% so far in 2025, but that return is affected by the April tariff selloff. Since the market bottomed on April 7, the sector is up 18.7%. The S&P 500 has risen more than 35%.
In that period, the financial sector’s return ranks fifth among the 11 S&P 500 sectors but is dwarfed by the 58% return since April for the Technology Sector, which includes Nvidia, Microsoft, Oracle and Palantir Technologies.
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Also ahead of financials are:
- Communications Services (including Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Google parent Alphabet): up 40.1% since April.
- Consumer Discretionary stocks (including Amazon.com and Tesla), up 30.6%.
- Industrial stocks (including Boeing, Delta Air Lines and 3M), up 28.8%
The weakest sector since April has Consumer Staples stocks like Walmart, Costco Wholesale and Clorox.
The week is not all financial stocks reporting.
Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML Holdings reports on Wednesday along with pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories, and United Airlines Holdings.
Thursday is extremely important because Taiwan Semiconductor, which manufacturers most of the world’s semiconductors from plants in Taiwan and around the world, reports before the New York open.
There are few economic reports this week because of the government shutdown. A number of Federal Reserve officials will be speaking throughout the week, and there was a chance the Bureau of Labor Statistics would put out a Consumer Price Index report. It’s needed to calculate cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients and others.
The report now has a projected release date of Oct. 24.
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