Last week’s big bank gains marked the unofficial start of earnings season and quarterly earnings for Wall Street’s largest firms conveyed a mixed message. As earnings flow gets in earnest into the evolving week, here’s Gasoline’s roundup of expectations and top earnings reports to watch out for during the trading week:

Q4 mood subdued: Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to fall 3.9% year over year, according to financial data provider FactSet’s latest weekly Earnings Insight report. This is a slight improvement over the A 4.1% decline was forecast in the company’s previous weekly report.

If the forecast for negative earnings holds true, it would be the first drop since the third quarter of 2020.

Twenty-nine of the S&P 500 companies have reported actual results, with 23 reporting earnings ahead of estimates and 20 reporting an upbeat revenue surprise.

Early trends give hope: Of the 29 earnings reports printed to date, 79% have reported better-than-expected earnings per share, and overall, actual earnings beat estimates by 7.7%, according to FactSet.

At a very early stage, the number of companies reporting positive EPS surprises and the magnitude of those EPS surprises tend to be close to their five-year averages, the report says.

The 12-month forward P/E for the S&P 500 Index is 17.3, according to FactSet, which is below the five-year average of 18.5 but above the 10-year average of 17.2.

It has also improved from 15.2 at the end of the third quarter as the index is up about 11.1%. The trailing 12-month P/E is 19.4, below the five-year moving average of 22.7 and the 10-year moving average of 20.5.

Chief Investment Officer of the Commonwealth Financial Network Brad MacMillan has been calling for earnings gains rather than a decline. The analyst noted that the analyst community is struggling to characterize extreme uncertainty in several areas and is suddenly becoming more pessimistic.