One does wonder what this economic week is going to bring. Doesn't one? From American public

media. This is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizdal. It is Monday today. The 9th of January, it is always

to have you along. Everybody, we begin today and we begin this week in this economy with

a look at the calendar. The big item is going to be Thursday, the December consumer price

index wither inflation as the Fed keeps its foot on the economic break. The end of the

week also brings a new corporate earnings season on Friday. We're going to hear from

a gaggle of big banks, JP Morgan, City Group and Wells Fargo among them. Fact sets is

guessing fourth quarter profits for S&P 500 companies overall are going to be down more

than 4% from a year ago the worst. Corporate reports since early on in the pandemic, Marketplace

and Mitchell Harman has our lead story today.

So far, predictions aren't great for corporate earnings in the fourth quarter when the economy

was slowing and layoffs were spreading in tech and finance. Equity analyst Ken Leon at

CFRA Research sees the big banks earnings as a harbinger of what's to come. A weaker

fourth quarter in 22 versus 21, lots of uncertainty for 2023. He says mortgage finance, investment

banking, M&A's and IPOs have all slumped as markets have faltered and borrowing costs

have increased. But there's also an upside to higher interest rates for banks says

Mark Zandy at Moody's analytics. The interest rates on their deposits, they're rising very

slowly, but the interest rate they charge on their loans are up. So they are doing pretty

well on that so-called net interest margin. That's their profit margin. It's pretty good.

But Zandy doesn't think that'll last, which might be welcome news for savers. I do

think banks will need to pay their depositors more to hold on to deposits that are starting

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