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Kai Ryssdal (1:02)

Banks Today and Health Care and our series The Age of Work. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Ryssdal. Thirteen October is what the calendar says, Tuesday. Good as always.

Stephen Bigger (1:28)

Have you along, everybody.

Kai Ryssdal (1:30)

Our entree into the inner workings of this economy today runs through 270 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10017

At which address, you will find the less than one year old, three-ish billion dollar headquarters of JPMorgan Chase and Company, which this morning, along with several of its peer Wall Street banks, opened the books on third quarter earning season. Banks are not, of course, the economic be-all and end-all, but how they're performing, profit and loss-wise, can tell us some things about how things are going. Marketplace's Kristen Schwab gets us going.

Kristen Schwab (2:10)

JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the US, so when it misses expectations, as it did, everyone sits up a little straighter. Christopher Maranac is a banking analyst at Green Capital.

Christopher Maranac (2:22)

They are a trendsetter whether we like it or not.

Kristen Schwab (2:24)

Chase has a lot of information about businesses and consumers, and it makes a lot of money off investment fees and company deals, which were volatile in the third quarter.

Christopher Maranac (2:35)

It is certainly just the reality of the business can't go to the moon every quarter.

Kristen Schwab (2:41)

Maranac says never-ending expectations of growth have soured what has otherwise been a pretty good period for banks. Commercial lending is up because of AI.

Consumer credit and debit spending is strong because of steady employment. Chris McGrady is head of US Bank Research at KBW.

Chris McGrady (2:59)

So as long as that continues, there should be, I would say, a pretty good support to GDP.

Kristen Schwab (3:05)

The forward guidance part of these earnings reports, though, also hinge on what the Federal Reserve does with interest rates and how companies and consumers respond, says Stephen Bigger. He's director of financial institutions research at Argus Research.

Stephen Bigger (3:20)

If you're about to proceed with a project, let's say, as a commercial customer, you might say, look, a quarter point is not going to impact whether or not I take this loan out.

Kristen Schwab (3:30)

The Fed increased rates by a quarter point in September. Markets are expecting another quarter point increase before the end of the year. And Bigger says, added together, a half point hike can have a real impact on bank lending.

Stephen Bigger (3:44)

The old statement about you can't fight the Fed.

Kristen Schwab (3:46)

It's a statement because in the end, the Fed is going to do with interest rates what the Fed needs to do. I'm Kristin Schwab for Marketplace.

Kai Ryssdal (3:56)

If it's a nice day, you can walk down Park Avenue, the Grand Central Station, jump on the four or the five train. You'll be at the New York Stock Exchange inside a half an hour. Had you done that today, you would have find traders who were a little mopey. To be honest, we will have the details when we do the numbers.

We're going back to India now for our series, The Age of Work. About 65% of the Indian population is what's called prime working age. That's 25 to 54 And unlike in the United States and a lot of developed economies where workforces are aging, India's prime age population is going to hit nearly 70% in just a few years. So by way of getting going, I want to start with two pieces of audio, interviews that we did in Mumbai on the same day, 12 miles apart.

Merzin Tavaria (5:09)