After investors raced for the exits following their last earnings reports, package-deliverer FedEx Corp. and athletic-gear maker Nike Inc. will try it again. And they’ll offer important reads on demand as inflation-chastened consumers navigate holiday shopping.

Quarterly results from FedEx (FDX) and Nike (NKE) this week, along with a report from General Mills (GIS) will provide a taste of what’s to come when the bigger earnings storm hits next month. For sure, rising prices for core necessities mix with a barrage of holiday discounts.

Analysts have been slightly less downcast on the fourth quarter than they were about the third, even as the Federal Reserve’s inflation-busting tactics raise concerns about the economy and U.S. retail sales marked their biggest decrease in nearly a year in November amid sluggish car sales and slower spending elsewhere. Analysts have lowered their earnings-per-share estimates by 6.1% since Sept. 30. That’s a bit narrower than the 6.8% haircut for Q3.

FactSet senior earnings analyst John Butters, in a report on Friday, said that analysts and companies “have been slightly less pessimistic in their earnings outlooks for S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter,” even if they’re more cautious when compared to trends over the last five years.

But with 2022 largely in the bag, analysts’ buy, hold and sell ratings haven’t always panned out as planned. The energy sector, Butters said, had the largest percentage of buy ratings at the end of 2021, and also logged the biggest price gain of all the sectors tracked by FactSet. But the two sectors that had next largest percentages of buy ratings at the end of 2021 — information technology, which includes Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL); and communication services, which includes Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) — “have seen the largest price decline and 4th-largest price decline of all 11 sectors during this time.”