Earnings

The third-quarter earnings season kicked off today with an ominous warning about global growth from the IMF. A weak consolation for Americans is that we are the only major economy where the IMF expects decent growth in the next year.

Third-quarter earnings season begins this week, with some analysts predicting the first decline in S&P 500 profits since 2009.

Shares in the office supply store Staples are down 15 percent this morning after the company said its sales dropped 5.5 percent last quarter. Meanwhile, the discount retailer Target said it made a $700 million profit last quarter

Pfizer seems to be weathering the loss of its patent for Lipitor just fine. The drug company says its second quarter profit jumped 25 percent. That's despite lower revenue, and competition from generics for its cholesterol-fighting blockbuster.

The British oil company BP is reporting a sharp drop in profits. The company made just $238 million last quarter, compared with more than $5 billion a year ago.

A lot of the earnings reports we've seen so far this week have been disappointing, including Facebook.

Yesterday after markets closed we got results from Zynga, the maker of Facebook games like FarmVille. And things ain't looking so good down on the farm.

The crisis in the eurozone is hitting profits everywhere; Anglo-Dutch oil giant "Shell" is the latest. Shell says this morning earnings fell 13 percent compared to the same quarter last year. This follows a string of U.S. companies blaming Europe.

Facebook has had a rocky road since it started selling shares and there are still big questions about Facebook's future. For instance: how, exactly, it plans to make money.