The Week Ahead

Will big banks keep clocking big profits? JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo kicked off earnings season for the largest US. banks on Friday, revealing another quarter of strong growth despite a relatively small increase in lending. Bank of America reports its second-quarter results Monday morning, followed by Goldman Sachs on Tuesday and Morgan Stanley on Wednesday. Trading revenue won’t be what it was during the busy beginning of 2018, but the banks are trying to make up for lackluster markets by cultivating other businesses like wealth management and consumer finance.

— EMILY FLITTER

Netflix reports its second-quarter earnings Monday, just days after it got the big news that it led the pack in the Emmy nominations. That was a first for a streaming service, and it also snapped HBO’s 17-year streak for leading all networks in Emmy nominations. With a market capitalization swelling to more than $170 billion, Netflix had said earlier this year that it expected to reach 125 million paying subscribers in the second quarter, up from its total of 118.9 million in the first quarter. As Netflix has reported in previous earnings, the bulk of any growth is expected to come from international markets.

— JOHN KOBLIN

The Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome H. Powell, will face questions about interest rates, inflation projections, the health of the financial sector and President Donald Trump’s trade war when he testifies before a Senate committee Tuesday and a House committee Wednesday.

— JIM TANKERSLEY

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, which represents the European Union’s heads of government, will visit Tokyo on Tuesday to sign an agreement with Japan to lower trade barriers. The treaty is the latest example of how the European Union is aggressively pursuing free trade agreements as a counterweight to U.S. protectionism. Among those expected to benefit from the accord are European wine and cheesemakers, whose products will no longer be subject to tariffs when entering Japan. The signing ceremony with Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, had been scheduled for a week earlier in Brussels but was postponed because of catastrophic flooding in Japan.

— JACK EWING

European authorities are expected to hit Google with a multibillion-dollar fine Wednesday for violating antitrust laws by using its dominance in the smartphone market to box out rivals. Google has been a frequent target of European regulators, who have been more aggressive in taking on Silicon Valley giants than their counterparts in the United States. Last year, Google was fined $2.7 billion in another antitrust case, and Apple, Facebook and the chipmaker Qualcomm have also been penalized by the European Commission in recent years. In the decision to be announced this week, the European competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, is expected to rule that Google unfairly required handset makers using its Android smartphone operating system to prioritize Google services like search over its rivals’ offerings.

— ADAM SATARIANO

The Commerce Department will hold a hearing Thursday in its ongoing investigation into whether imports of automobiles and auto parts compromise U.S. national security, an inquiry that could ultimately result in sweeping tariffs on roughly $350 billion of imported products. The hearing will include testimony from dozens of domestic and international companies, industry groups and officials from other countries and the Department of Defense, which the Commerce Department said it would weigh before making a recommendation on possible tariffs. President Donald Trump has threatened to place a 20 percent tariff on foreign automobiles, a measure that would fall heaviest on U.S. allies. In 2017, 98 percent of passenger vehicles imported into the United States came from Mexico, Canada, the European Union, Japan or South Korea.

— ANA SWANSON

Microsoft is an older tech company that looks surprisingly youthful these days. The software maker has successfully navigated the shift to selling its products as an internet service, cloud computing. When the company reports its quarterly results Thursday, analysts will be focusing on the growth trends in two businesses. The first is Azure, Microsoft’s service for cloud-based computer processing and storage, a market where the company is a strong No. 2, behind Amazon. The other is Office 365, the cloud version of the company’s popular office productivity apps like Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

— STEVE LOHR

The big moves at General Electric are over. Last month, John Flannery, the chief executive, declared that the new, smaller GE would make jet engines, electric power generators and wind turbines. The rest will be gone eventually. GE reports its second-quarter results Friday. Things to look for: signs that its operating performance is picking up — like higher cash flow and an improvement in its ailing power business.

— STEVE LOHR

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, returns to Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Friday for the next round of the G-20 finance ministers meetings. Once again, he will be in the position of doing damage control for President Donald Trump, who just concluded a contentious NATO summit in Brussels. Mnuchin will be under pressure from finance ministers at the gathering to offer relief from U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, which have set off a trade dispute with the European Union. The Treasury secretary is also visiting Brazil and Puerto Rico on the trip.

— ALAN RAPPEPORT