FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - The corporate reporting season is in full swing in the new week. This applies to both Germany and the USA. In this respect, the past trading week was just a warm-up for the coming days. Investors are hoping for indications of how well companies have coped with the currently still high interest rates, which are making investments more expensive - and how they assess the economic outlook.

The agenda on the German stock market is already well filled on Tuesday. The chemical company Covestro and the airline Lufthansa, among others, will then present their business figures. Heavyweights such as chemicals group BASF and car manufacturer Volkswagen will follow on Wednesday.

In the USA, more than a third of the companies in the US S&P 500 index will present their figures. Among them are five of the six largest companies, namely Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple. And their reports could determine the direction of the markets, as Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) writes in an outlook.

This is all the more true as the available figures paint a rather mixed picture. "The figures for the current reporting season so far are not entirely convincing," LBBW states. "The momentum of downward earnings revisions has recently increased significantly - especially for Europe."

But it is not only the quarterly figures that will set the tone. The US presidential election campaign is also entering the decisive round. Former President Donald Trump currently appears to have a slight lead. "For around three weeks now, the financial markets have been increasingly pricing in the 'Trump 2.0' presidency scenario as Trump catches up with Harris in the polls," says Robert Greil, Chief Strategist at private bank Merck Finck.

However, the German benchmark index Dax is currently tending to take cover ahead of the US election, wrote capital market strategist Jürgen Molnar from trading firm Robomarkets: "The closer the presidential election in the US gets and a second term in office for Republican Donald Trump in the White House becomes more likely according to polls and betting odds, the more fear of this scenario increases among investors in Germany and therefore also on the Frankfurt stock exchange." While Wall Street is at most afraid of a post-poll hangover, European concerns go much further: "With tariffs and counter-tariffs, an export nation like Germany could suffer a loss of 180 billion euros over the next four years, according to leading German economic institutes."

As if that wasn't enough, there is also a series of high-profile economic data. Inflation figures for Germany on Wednesday will be followed by the corresponding data for the eurozone on Thursday. "Inflation in the eurozone is likely to have risen again slightly to 1.9 percent in October," says Ulrich Kater, Chief Economist at Dekabank.

The USA has even more to offer. On Wednesday, the third quarter gross domestic product data is on the agenda, providing an important stimulus for the US Federal Reserve. "The significant slowdown that has long been discussed and predicted by many will probably not happen this time," say Helaba's economists.

The US labor market report on Friday is likely to point in a similar direction. "Despite the hurricanes at the beginning of the month, the figures for October are likely to be only slightly weaker," Helaba said. This could further dampen fears of a hard landing for the US economy. However, the same also applies to expectations of interest rate cuts./mf/la/ajx/he

--- By Michael Fuchs and Lutz Alexander, dpa-AFX ---