Big international companies, like CAT, General Motors, eBay, McDonalds, and Under Armor are expected to report their third quarter earnings, and according to analysts, there is a bigger economic story behind these snapshots.

Long-time Dow component and heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar reported a sales drop in its third quarter earnings and investors are very much concerned about what drives that sales drop, according to Forbes.

CAT's restructuring could be one of the biggest factors that lead to that drop, but some analysts believe there is a bigger, more global problem that has affected CAT.

Some of these problems could be the possibility of a global slowdown that will have adverse effects on  major multinational players, including CAT.

Industrial analysts put the blame on the waning infrastructure and construction spending in almost any part of the world. Also, there is the foreign currency impact, which all started with the economic slowdown in China.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that the US stock index futures were a bit higher on Wednesday, which is a reverse from the small losses it had on Tuesday. This is right before the earnings reports from giant companies like General Motors, Coca-Cola, and Boeing.

It also reported that investors will be looking for clues in these quarterly reports on how to increase revenue and protect profits as economic slowdown threatens to worsen. Also Standards and Poor 500 companies are seen to report a 3.9 percent drop in third-quarter profit, as well as a 3.8 percent decrease in revenue, based on Thomson Reuters' data.

According to NBC News hopes are down and doubts are growing that the US could sail through the economic pressure abroad, especially that some of its biggest trading partners, like China, Brazil, Canada, and Europe are in recession.

Analysts know that the economy is slowing down, the question now is whether this problem is just temporary or will it last in the long-term.