Bank preferreds mixed as Citi, JPMorgan beat expectations; Wells Fargo barely misses

By Stephanie N. Rotondo

Seattle, April 13 – Bank earnings season started with a bang on Thursday, as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. all announced results that mostly beat expectations.

However, given the holiday, trading in those names was limited.

Citigroup’s 7.875% fixed-to-floating rate trust preferred securities (NYSE: CPrN) added a nickel, closing at $26.70. JPMorgan’s 6.1% series AA noncumulative preferreds (NYSE: JPMPrG) improved 17 cents to $27.02.

Wells Fargo’s 5.5% series X class A noncumulative preferreds (NYSE: WFCPrX), however, dipped a penny to $24.94.

Wells Fargo was the only bank of the three that didn’t completely beat expectations.

For the quarter, Citi reported net income of $4.1 billion, a 17% increase from the year before. On a per-share basis, earnings were $1.35, versus the $1.24 a share analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast.

Revenue came in at $18.12 billion, compared to expectations of $17.76 billion.

Revenue was helped in part by a 19% gain in fixed income trading revenue and a 10% improvement in equity trading revenue.

JPMorgan meantime posted first-quarter EPS of $1.65 on revenue of $25.6 billion.

Analysts expected the bank to post EPS of $1.52 on revenue of $24.87 billion.

For Wells Fargo, the results were more mixed. EPS was better at $1.00 – versus the 97 cents analysts had predicted – but revenue barely missed expectations at $22 billion.

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