Big bank stocks are outperforming the rest of the S&P 500 this year, and investor confidence is about to be tested.
JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ), Wells Fargo ( WFC ) and Citigroup ( C ) all report their second-quarter results this Friday, kicking off another earnings season for the US banking industry. Bank of America (BAC) reports next Tuesday.
Shares of these banks – the four largest in the US – have each risen more than 20% since January, outperforming the S&P 500 ( GSPC ). That performance is also roughly double the gains of an index that tracks the broader industry, the Nasdaq KBW Bank Index (^BKX).
Big bank investors are optimistic about the ability of the biggest financial institutions to thrive as the Federal Reserve slowly cuts interest rates, as regulators roll back a raft of new bank capital rules and as Wall Street deals they are coming back.
The Fed’s policy path – which is currently expected to be 1 or 2 cuts in 2024 followed by more in 2025 – “really bodes well” for the group of big banks over the next year, bank analyst RBC Capital said. Markets, Gerard Cassidy.
But current results from the big banks during the second quarter are not expected to dazzle, despite a headline number from JPMorgan that is likely to blow away all rivals.
JPMorgan is expected to report a sizeable net profit, in part due to a multibillion-dollar pretax accounting boost from a stock swap in credit card giant Visa ( V ), but analysts say that won’t draw much attention from market watchers.
“I think the market will very quickly pull it back as kind of an unusual or one-time event,” said Scott Siefers, a senior banking analyst with Piper Sandler.
Where it’s likely to get the most focus is what JPMorgan has to say about a key measure of lending profit known as net interest income.
That profit – which measures the difference between what banks pay out on deposits and take out on their loans – is expected to decline from next quarter. The same goes for the other three big banks.
Even the biggest banks have been struggling with the measure as deposit costs remain high, credit demand remains weak and the Fed takes longer than expected to cut interest rates.
“Investors hope to see net interest income for the second quarter, ideally, be the cap for the big banks this year,” Siefers added.
The results from the big banks are also likely to reveal the cautious stance these lenders are taking on credit as higher rates pose more challenges for their borrowers.
New provisions set aside to cover future loan losses at the big four banks are expected to rise 26% from the previous quarter. By comparison, the pace of loan loss provisions at all commercial banks began to stabilize earlier this year, rising 0.30% during the quarter, according to Federal Reserve data.
Where the results should be significantly brighter are the Wall Street operations of these big banks, as deal-making opens a rebound from underperformance in 2023 and 2022.
The big four banks along with Wall Street specialists Goldman Sachs ( GS ) and Morgan Stanley ( MS ) are all expected to show significant jumps — more than 30% on average — in investment banking fees compared to a year ago. Goldman and Morgan Stanley report their earnings on Monday and Tuesday.
The big event that all the banks are waiting for is when the Fed finally decides to start cutting rates from their 23-year high. The current market bet is that it could happen as early as September.
For smaller regional banks, the sooner the rate cuts come, the better. They are more dependent on lending income and thus have been hit hardest by an industry-wide decline in net interest income. They are also more exposed to downsides in the commercial real estate market.
Investors have reduced the stocks of various regional and small banks this year as new problems or concerns emerge.
That happened last week after Dallas bank First Foundation (FFWM) announced a $228 million infusion from new investors to help it reduce its concentration of multifamily apartment loans.
It also happened in June following an analyst report looking into the debt held by Bank OZK ( OZK ) and in May when a short seller targeted Axos Financial ( AX ) over the quality of its property loans.
Concerns about commercial real estate were first sparked earlier this year when New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) set aside a surprising amount of cash in case of loan losses in part for rent-regulated apartment complexes in the New York City area. York.
Shares of NYCB fell, but it was able to calm the market with an emergency infusion of capital from a group that included former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
All this turmoil has “dampened investor expectations” for regional banks, Bank of America analyst Ebrahim Poonawala said.
Investors will be on the lookout for more weakness as many medium-sized institutions report in the coming weeks.
For these lenders “the bull issue is that their actual loan losses will be significantly lower than their share price,” Chris McGratty, a regional bank analyst with KBW told Yahoo Finance.
But institutions that rely heavily on commercial real estate lending aren’t likely to get the benefit of the doubt until the loan cycle is complete, McGratty added.
An index that tracks the share prices of regional banks (KRE) has fallen more than 7% since the start of the year.
David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto and other areas in finance.
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