With the government still in shutdown and the debt ceiling looming, third quarter earnings season on Wall Street has arrived. Tomorrow (10/08), Alcoa (NYSE: AA) will unofficially kick off earnings season with its report after the market close.

While an important company, Alcoa is not considered a benchmark for how the rest of the earnings season will shape up. Aluminium prices have been in the toilet; results are expected to be lackluster, and the company was recently dropped from the Dow 30.

On average, analysts are looking for Alcoa to post earnings per share of $0.05 and revenues of $5.66 billion representing growth of 67% and -2.4% year-over-year, respectively.

While Alcoa's quarterly results won't be too much to read into, on Friday results come in from banking giants JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) For JPMorgan, analysts are looking for EPS of $1.27, or down 9% from last year, and revenues of $24.14 billion, or down 7% from last year. For Wells Fargo, analysts are looking for EPS down 1% and revenues up 10%.

Next week, earnings season will kick into high gear:

On Tuesday, Citigroup (NYSE: C), Coca Cola (NYSE: KO), CSX (NYSE: CSX), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) report, among many others.

On Wednesday, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), IBM (NYSE: IBM), PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) report, among many others.

On Thursday, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), United Health (NYSE: UNH), and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) report, among many others.

On Friday, GE (NYSE: GE), Honeywell (NYSE: HON) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and report, among many others.

For real-time earnings news and analysis, earnings calendars, analyst earnings commentary and much more this earnings season please check in often at StreetInsider.com's EPS Insider.

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