Wall Street tumbles as investors brace for dour earnings

Wall Street’s main indexes slipped on Monday as corporate America launches into what is expected to be a painful quarterly earnings season due to the coronavirus pandemic. JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) will kick off the reporting season on Tuesday, with analysts expecting an uptick in trading revenue to be offset by declines in other businesses and a bleak outlook for the rest of 2020. The S&P banking subsector. SPXBK shed 2.5%, while the broader financial sector .SPSY dragged on the benchmark S&P 500 with a 2.4% fall. Overall, earnings for S&P 500 firms are expected to tumble 9.0% in the first quarter, compared with a Jan. 1 forecast of a 6.3% rise, before plummeting 20.7% in the second quarter as sweeping lockdowns halt business activity and spark furloughs. “We’re bracing for one of the worst earnings seasons in recent history,” said Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at financial markets platform Investing.com.