INVESTOR WARNING: ‘AWFUL EARNINGS SEASON’

Major companies are about to tell investors how they fared during the second quarter as the coronavirus swept over America. And there's no sugarcoating it. To paraphrase the title of a popular children's book: It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad three months.

Brace yourself: According to estimates compiled by FactSet, analysts predict that earnings for the S&P 500 plummeted nearly 45%, which would be the biggest drop since a 69% plunge during the depths of the Great Recession in the fourth quarter of 2008. Revenues are expected to have fallen more than 10%. Retailers, energy companies and industrial firms likely reported the biggest declines in sales and profit, Paul La Monica and Julia Horowitz wrote for CNN Business on July 12, 2020.

Financial firms take center stage this week. JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and BlackRock are just a few of the big banks and asset managers that will post their latest results.

"Now that we are getting through the first full quarter of Covid-19 lockdowns ... the effects of the pandemic and resulting loss of economic activity are starting to show an impact," Mark Doctoroff, managing director and global co-head of the financial institutions group for MUFG, said in an email to CNN Business. Doctoroff said investors will be keeping a close eye on loan quality — especially after a recent spate of high-profile corporate bankruptcies. Consumers may have struggled to make auto and credit card payments as well, even as many banks have offered mortgage forbearance programs.