The third-quarter reporting season in the United States got under way this week with companies issuing the first set of figures to reflect in any way the effects of the September 11th attacks. While the markets have been pricing in a fair bit of bad news in recent week, investors will need to stay alert.

Analysts will be examining figures closely to try to isolate longer-term trends from the immediate aftermath of the attacks, and with the scale of any downturn still uncertain and sectoral prospects widely varying, customers can expect a range of broker grading alerts.