Wells Fargo on Friday reported first-quarter earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street expectations, despite a decline in net interest income.
Here’s how the company performed compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:
Earnings per share: $1.26 cents adjusted vs. $1.11 cents expected
Revenue: $20.86 billion vs. $20.20 billion expected
Shares of Wells traded flat Friday following the earnings report.
Wells said its net interest income, a key measure of what a bank makes on lending, decreased 8% in the quarter, due to the impact of higher interest rates on funding costs and a shift by customers to higher-yielding deposit products.
Net interest income for 2024 is expected to post a decline in the 7% to 9% range, unchanged from its prior guidance.
A woman walks past Wells Fargo bank in New York City, U.S., March 17, 2020.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
The San Francisco-based bank saw net income decline to $4.62 billion, or $1.20 per share, from $4.99 billion, or $1.23 per share, a year earlier. Excluding a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. charge of $284 million, or 6 cents per share, tied to the bank failures in 2023, Wells said it earned $1.26 per share, topping analyst estimates of $1.11 per share.
Revenue of $20.86 billion came in above the $20.20 billion estimate.
“Our solid first quarter results demonstrate the progress we continue to make to improve and diversify our financial performance,” Wells CEO Charlie Scharf said in a statement.
“The investments we are making across the franchise contributed to higher revenue versus the fourth quarter as an increase in noninterest income more than offset an expected decline in net interest income,” Scharf added.
For the latest period, the bank set aside $938 million as provision for credit losses. The bank said the provision included a decrease in the allowance for credit losses, driven by commercial real estate and auto loans.
Wells’ stock is up more than 15% year to date, beating the S&P 500’s 9% return.
The bank repurchased 112.5 million shares, or $6.1 billion, of common stock in first quarter.
Steve Cohen said Wednesday he sees the possibility that stocks could retest their lows from April following the market’s dramatic comeback. “I don’t expect, you know, a significant decline. I think this is possible we can go back toward the lows which is 10%, 15% [from here] so it’s not a calamity,” the founder of Point72 said at the Sohn Investment Conference in New York. “What Trump did recently actually raises the floor and eliminates perhaps the dire scenario.” Cohen’s comments came after the U.S. and China suspended reciprocal tariffs pending a 90-day negotiating period, which sparked a sharp rally in stocks. The S & P 500 has jumped 4% this week, fully recovering from the April sell-off and turning green on the year. Stocks started to mount their comeback from their tariffs lows last month as Trump paused the most severe tariffs on most countries. .SPX YTD mountain S & P 500 The billionaire investor, also owner of the New York Mets of Major League Baseball, said the market feels “toppy” right now. He believes there is still a modest risk the U.S. could tip into a recession even though tariffs on China have been slashed. “We’re not a recession yet…. We think it would probably be like a 45% chance of recession,” Cohen said. “So that’s not insignificant, even if it’s not the definition of recession, it’s definitely slow growth. And so I think it’s almost unavoidable when you add up the tariffs, you add up the 10% rate, sectorial tariffs, and whatever happens with China.”
“I didn’t really start getting old, for some strange reason, until I was about 90,” he told the Journal in a phone interview. “But when you start getting old, it does become—it’s irreversible.”
The Oracle of Omaha, who turns 95 in August, revealed to the paper that he started to lose his balance occasionally, while experiencing issues remembering someone’s name sometimes. His vision also turned less clear when reading newspapers.
It marked an end of an era at Berkshire, which was a failing New England textile mill six decades ago and was transformed into a one-of-a-kind conglomerate with businesses ranging from Geico insurance to BNSF Railway. Buffett is handing over his reins on a high note as Berkshire shares are near a record high, giving the conglomerate a market cap of nearly $1.2 trillion.
Berkshire’s board voted unanimously to make Greg Abel, now vice chairman of noninsurance operations, president and CEO on Jan. 1, 2026, and for Buffett to remain as chairman.
Still, Buffett said he remains mentally sharp to make investment decisions when opportunities arise. The value investing icon is known to take advantage of market turmoil and depressed prices to make big purchases.
“I don’t have any trouble making decisions about something that I was making decisions on 20 years ago or 40 years ago or 60 years,” he told the Journal. “I will be useful here if there’s a panic in the market because I don’t get fearful when things go down in price or everybody else gets scared….And that really isn’t a function of age.”
The logo for consumer lending firm Capital One Financial Corp is seen on its headquarters on January 20, 2023 in McLean, Virginia. The company has reportedly eliminated up to 1,100 technology positions this week as its digital structure matures.
Win Mcnamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images
New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Capital One on Wednesday, accusing the bank of “cheating” customers out of millions of dollars in interest payments – just months after the Trump administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dropped a similar suit against the financial institution.
In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, James alleged that Capital One marketed its “360 Savings” account as its high-yield savings account, then left those customers in the dark by failing to inform them about its new “360 Performance Savings” product that offered substantially higher interest rates.
As interest rates rose starting in 2022, the state attorney general’s office said, Capital One froze the interest rate of its 360 Savings product at 0.3%, while increasing the rate of the 360 Performance Savings accounts to as high as 4.35%, meaning New York 360 Savings customers lost out on “millions of dollars of interest.”
The suit further alleges that Capital One instructed its employees not to tell 360 Savings customers about the new product “unless they explicitly asked.”
The complaint mimics litigation by the CFPB, which was dropped in February under Trump-era CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought. That suit alleged Capital One’s marketing led U.S. customers to miss out on more than $2 billion in interest.
The dropped CFPB case is among a slew of other enforcement lawsuits that the agency pursued under previous CFPB director, Rohit Chopra, and that have been dismissed by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Capital One assured high returns with no catches, then pulled the rug out from under their customers and hoped nobody would notice,” James said in a statement Wednesday. “Big banks are not allowed to cheat their customers with false advertising and misleading promises.”
Capital One did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment Wednesday. The bank disputed the CFPB allegations earlier this year and told CNBC that it transparently marketed its 360 Performance Savings account.
The New York suit accuses Capital One of violating state and federal law and seeks “restitution and damages for all affected Capital One customers.”