The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition do not count the banks out yet. The Globe's Tim Kiladze writes that for the past few quarters, the banks faced the same headwinds, but every three months analysts and investors were pleasantly surprised with their results. So this earnings season, which TD Bank kicks off Thursday, analysts are considering the possibility of another surprise, even though home sales slowed this spring after Ottawa tightened mortgage rules and capital markets underwriting and advisory activity has been soft. Working in favour of surprise is the fact that banks keep catching lucky breaks. The Big Six are also increasingly international. Both TD and Bank of Nova Scotia have substantial foreign retail banking operations, and RBC has a sizable global capital markets business. Still, analysts stress that the banks can only count on so many surprises. "We fear that that banks may be running out of items in their bag of tricks," Barclays Capital analyst John Aiken wrote in a research note for clients. TD Securities analyst Jason Bilodeau echoes that sentiment: "It is not clear that the surprises of [the first quarter] can repeat." Investors appear to have priced in a slowdown.