| Third quarter earnings season kicked off with a bang last week. As they do every quarter, the big investment banks launched the reporting season for quarterly financial results. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) both reported results Friday - and the market was watching closely for an update on the health of both consumers and businesses. Those big money center banks - together with rivals like Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) - are major pipelines for money moving through the economy. As such, they can provide bountiful information about both borrowing and spending (two activities that are vital to economic growth). And while loan demand remained weak in the third quarter - mostly due to elevated interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve since early 2022 - consumer finances and spending continue to be healthy, despite the higher inflation of the last few years. With consumer spending driving roughly two-thirds of economic activity, that's a very good sign indeed... for both the economy and investors. In fact, industry analysts were predicting worse earnings for the big banks due to still-meager lending demand. But the banks have outperformed those expectations so far and their earnings are expected to improve going forward as the Fed lowers interest rates and loan demand rebounds. As a result, both JPMorgan and Wells Fargo stocks soared - bringing their best daily performances since early 2023. The S&P 500 also rose on the news. FactSet tracks both earnings estimates by equity analysts and actual earnings, and it predicts the S&P 500 will report earnings growth of about 7% this quarter (compared to the same quarter a year ago). And as you can see in the chart below, S&P 500 overall earnings have been growing at an accelerating pace since the third quarter of 2023... | 
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