What To Watch In First Round Of Big Bank Earnings Reports

JPMorgan (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C) are scheduled to report quarterly results before the open on October 12. What to watch for:

1. OUTLOOKS: Last company’s earnings call, Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said that the bank is “on track” to achieve targeted $4B of expense reductions by end of 2019. Wells Fargo also said it sees Q3 C&I and CRE loans down from Q2, reflecting continued competitive pressure on credit structure and pricing, while credit quality remains “solid.” Wells Fargo added it sees Q3 consumer loans down modestly from Q2, Q3 auto originations higher than Q2 and Q3 NII and NIM in line with Q2. Additionally, the bank said it sees modest growth in Q3 deposit service charges to be driven by customer activity which is expected to be partially offset by higher earnings credit rate for commercial customers. 2018 deposit service charges are expected to decline on the full year impact of customer-friendly changes to deposit account fees and higher earnings credit rate for commercial customer, while Q3 mortgage originations should be largely in line with Q2, the company added. On September 20, Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said he sees company headcount decreasing 5%-10% in the next three years. At the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference last month, Citi CFO John Gerspach said the bank’s priorities are unchanged, and the company has a line of sight to increased efficiency savings by 2020 for about $2.8B of savings. Citi is maintaining its low-50% efficiency ratio target, with 100bps of improvement in 2018 and 400bps of aggregate improvement in 2019 and 2020. The bank now expects its tax rate to be less than 24% by 2020, sees delivering ROTCE of 13.5%-plus by 2020, and raised its longer-term ROTCE target to about 16% from about 14%. Gerpsach said he sees it delivering revenue growth broadly in line with 4%-5% CAGR expectations for the core businesses.

2. MOBILE TRADING PLATFORM: Back in August, JPMorgan Chase announced the launch of “You Invest,” a new U.S. digital investment platform offering all customers 100 commission-free online stock and ETF trades and the opportunity to earn unlimited commission-free trading. You Invest will unveil its digital advice offering, You Invest Portfolios, in January 2019. Margin, options and other capabilities for long-term investors will be available in 2019, JPMorgan added.