Hope has been the primary fuel for those who have been bullish on the market through its darkest days. And keeping hope alive has certainly paid off over the past seven months.

Since its March 9 bottom, the S&P 500 index has soared 56%, bringing us to a 32% loss on that index since this time two years ago. The excitement has been driven by a number of factors.

For one, many investors believed that concern over the financial crisis turned into outright panic and stocks simply fell too low. Many have also pointed to the cost-cutting moves that many companies have made and are looking for that to feed the bottom line. And there's also been hope stirring recently that the economy is starting to turn back around and renewed growth will give earnings a helping hand.

So what about those earnings?
After Alcoa 's earnings announcement today officially kicks off third-quarter earnings season, we're going to very quickly be inundated by earnings reports. The first few weeks of earnings season will be the most important, as investors will be looking to rapidly form conclusions about both third-quarter performance and the outlook for the final three months of the year.

Here's a look at a few of the major earnings announcements over the next couple of weeks and what Wall Street is expecting.

Company

Earnings Date

Earnings Expectation

Expected Earnings Growth (YOY)

PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP)

10/8/09

$1.03

(3%)

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ)

10/13/09

$1.13

(3%)

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM)

10/14/09

$0.48

336%

Nokia (NYSE: NOK)

10/15/09

$0.18

(64%)

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS)

10/15/09

$4.16

130%

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Continued...