Bloomberg News
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — If you had any doubts the banking landscape had changed in the years since the financial crisis, the past two weeks should have cleared the picture for you.
From Citigroup Inc.’s
C +0.02% surprisingly strong results, to
Wells Fargo & Co.’s
WFC +0.06% Steady Eddie growth to disappointments and losses at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
JPM +1.42% and
Bank of America Corp. BAC -0.06% , there are clear winners and losers emerging as the detritus of the credit crisis fades.
In short, we found that banks that can write quality loans that produce steady returns are thriving. We found that banks that continue to depend on trading income and other market-sensitive revenue are at the mercy of their trading book. And we found that some banks are still behind when it comes to remaking themselves. Either they have too many crisis ghosts in the closet, such as pending settlements, or they can’t quite embrace their inner selves as lenders, or in the case of broker/dealers, advisers and underwriters.
Investors still face the risk of a pullback
So, with apologies to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob “Jack” Lew, here’s how the too-big-to-fail Wall Street institutions fared after the “stress test” of first-quarter earnings.
Citigroup Inc.: C+ This grade could have been so much higher had the bank not
failed a key part of the official stress test and been granted authority to increase its dividend. That news, and to a much lesser extent the alleged fraud at its Banamex unit, made the bank’s
first-quarter profit of $3.94 billion moot. The results were even more encouraging given Citi’s overseas exposure (more than 40% of revenue comes from outside the U.S. market). Since Citi can’t dole out those profits to shareholders, many investors wonder: What’s the point?
Citigroup shares are down 8% since the start of the year.
Bank of America: C If Citigroup was penalized for its stress-test results, Bank of America got the opposite deal. It passed the stress test, but it’s
first-quarter results were awful: a $273 million loss driven by legal costs stemming from the financial crisis. If Citigroup is a bank that isn’t prepared for the future, B. of A. is a bank that can’t seem to get the present right. Yes, its credit profile improved. Yes, its net interest margin (the difference between the cost of a loan and the interest it receives on it) rose. Yes, its
Merrill Lynch brokerage
reported record revenue. But Brian Moynihan, the bank’s CEO, and its financial officers could give no indication when the big legal clouds would clear. That’s going to hang on the stock.
B. of A. shares are up 3.4% this year.
J.P. Morgan: D For a bank that looked as if it had everything going its way after the financial crisis — fewer losses and write downs and higher profits, topping out at $19.9 billion in earnings in 2012 — J.P. Morgan can’t shoot straight. Legal costs are over $20 billion and mounting. Its dependence on trading revenue has been exposed (down $1 billion from a year earlier). Its ability to squeeze profit from net interest margins is sputtering. And, finally, J.P. Morgan
missed analysts’ estimates, though it did report a $5.27 billion profit.
Change is here! Right Now! Starting with You!