*

Q3 earnings pick up, Netflix ( NFLX ) on Tuesday, Tesla due

Wednesday

*

Delayed Sept CPI release out on Friday

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Focus also on US-China trade developments, regional banks

(Updates with Trump-China, banking developments, latest market

data)

By Lewis Krauskopf

NEW YORK, Oct 17 (Reuters) -

Earnings reports next week, including from Tesla

and Netflix ( NFLX ), will provide a deeper look at U.S.

corporate profits while delayed U.S. inflation data will mark

another test of the stock market, which has become shakier even

as it remains around record highs.

The fourth year of the S&P 500's bull run kicked off this

week with some significant gyrations after a long period of

market calm.

Revived U.S.-China trade tensions and credit concerns at

regional U.S. banks drove the anxiety. The CBOE market

volatility index, known as Wall Street's "fear gauge",

has surged in recent days and hit its highest level in nearly

six months on Friday.

"The market is becoming more volatile, but it's also coming

off of a very non-volatile period where we didn't have a lot of

risk catalysts bubbling to the top," said Michael Reynolds, vice

president of investment strategy at Glenmede.

"Once you have valuations hit sort of full levels, as we're

seeing now almost across the board, you have to be on the

lookout for incremental risk catalysts."

The spark for the latest volatility was a surprise resurgence in

U.S.-China trade tensions. Stocks slumped late last week after

the U.S. threatened to significantly hike tariffs by November 1

over China's rare-earth export controls.

The U.S.-China trade issue will be key for markets in the

coming week, said Doug Beath, global equity strategist at Wells

Fargo Investment Institute. U.S. President Donald Trump

confirmed on Friday that he would meet with Chinese President Xi

Jinping in two weeks in South Korea.

Sharp swings in

global financial shares

to end the week also kept investors on edge as they weighed

the extent of credit concerns emerging from regional U.S. banks.

Major stock indexes posted weekly gains and are on pace for

strong years. The benchmark S&P 500 is up 13.3% year-to-date and

1.3% below its record high. But there are signs the market is

weakening under the surface.

The percentage of S&P 500 stocks in some form of an uptrend

declined from 77% in early July to 57% as of Tuesday while the

number of stocks in a downtrend increased from 23% to 44% over

that time, according to Adam Turnquist, chief technical

strategist for LPL Financial.

That "narrowing gap highlights emerging cracks in the market's

foundation," Turnquist said in written commentary. Similarly,

Kevin Gordon, senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab,

said he will be watching how broadly based the market's gains

are going forward.

"If you have a fewer number of companies that are actually

moving higher, but the indexes do move higher because of the

megacaps, that's a really important divergence," Gordon said.

Attention will be on third-quarter earnings after major

banks started the reporting season on a strong note. Aside from

streaming giant Netflix ( NFLX ) and electric vehicle maker Tesla, other

companies due to report in the coming week include consumer

companies Procter & Gamble ( PG ) and Coca-Cola,

aerospace and defense giant RTX and tech stalwart IBM ( IBM )

.

The corporate results and executive comments will offer insight

into the economy as the U.S. government shutdown has stopped

economic data releases since October 1, including monthly

employment data.

Corporate "reports and what companies say is really our best

chance at assessing what the broader economic health is," Gordon

said.

The government has said it will release the U.S. consumer price

index for September on Friday, nine days late, saying the CPI

data allows the Social Security Administration to meet deadlines

for timely payment of benefits.

The CPI report, which is a closely watched inflation gauge, will

be released days before the Federal Reserve's next monetary

policy meeting on October 28-29. The U.S. central bank is widely

expected to cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point

again, after weakening jobs data prompted the Fed to lower rates

last month for the first time this year.

"We'd really have to see something out of left field in

terms of notable inflation pressures to knock the Fed off of a

rate cut path at the October meeting," Glenmede's Reynolds said.