Companies will be reporting final 2010 earnings in the ongoing week, but the profits should reach the highest point in this quarter then level off because high unemployment and new headwinds check any further business profit gains.

Pressures from mounting costs and harder comparisons are taking out the momentum from corporate profits. While some businesses might be witnessing a in modest boost this year from new tax-law depreciation revisions, big profit makings are largely behind many industries.

This week, Intel Corp. and Alcoa Inc. are likely to report noticeably higher gains for the final quarter of 2010. Overall, fourth-quarter gains are shown to jump 9.8% from the previous year continuing the streak of increasing earnings that could send the Dow Jones Industrial Average in this month to reach levels that had not been seen after the month of May 2008.

Except of an unexpected acceleration in the economy, industries such as food, airlines, telecommunications and construction that have lagged the recovery, might very well remain under pressure. The airline industry, for example just posted its first full year of profit in four years, but at present it is faced with higher costs for jet fuel and labor pressures.

The end of the sharp profit recovery has suggestions for investors as well as businesses. Standard & Poor's now hopes that the reported profits for S&P 500-Index members will reach a three-year peak this quarter, and go slightly lower for the next five quarters.

Earnings for the S&P 500 companies are likely to reach twenty two dollars and sixty two cents per share, up by twenty nine percent from the previous year and up from a deep loss in late 2008.