With the first full week of the US third quarter earnings’ releases behind us, results so far have generally been a pleasant surprise. This comes against a backdrop of bleak expectations, with many analysts expecting dire misses and lower guidance that have not materialised, except for a few misses here and there. In actual fact, this resembles very much what we witnessed in the June-quarter reporting cycle, when estimates and sentiment had weakened so much that the actual results ended up looking a lot better in comparison. That said, it is important to point out that the sample of results at this stage was skewed towards some of Wall Street’s biggest banks, whose profitability benefitted from higher interest rates and trading in volatile bond and currency markets. Bank of America really stood out on that count, but practically all of the banks came out with strong numbers for the third quarter and provided reassuring commentary for the current quarter as well. Beyond the financial sector, there were also good results from US-based airlines like United Airlines, Delta and American Airlines, which suggest that the airline industry is recovering to pre-pandemic levels. The...
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