# US Bank Earnings Surpass Wall Street Expectations

An episode of [Bloomberg Intelligence](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/326301337), 14 Jul 2026, 4:14.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7f534b8c-9e91-429a-b102-ae3c00090c6d/06d41310-70a4-49ad-8ba7-b48700f5a0f6/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=0ad812bf-fd15-4012-a18c-ae3c00090c76

Watch Paul and Scarlet LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF. Bloomberg Intelligence hosted by Paul Sweeney and Scarlet Fu -Herman Chan, Senior Analyst, US Banks for Bloomberg Intelligence, recaps U.S bank earnings. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reported its highest quarterly profit ever, with a long-held Visa Inc. stake paying off to the tune of $4.6 billion. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. posted $7.42 billion for a quarter with record results in its equities unit, driven by financing and taking profit in arranging bets. Bank of America Corp.'s stock traders notched a record during the second quarter, benefiting from market volatility, while its investment bankers capitalized on a dealmaking resurgence. Wells Fargo & Co. reported second-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates on higher fees from wealth management and investment banking. Citigroup Inc.'s key business lines surpassed Wall Street's expectations, although the bank's record haul in stock trading fell short of the growth posted by rivals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

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[0:23] Speaker 2: A lot of movers out there in the marketplace, including
[0:26] Speaker 2: the big banks, because men, it's the busiest day I've
[0:29] Speaker 2: ever seen for big bank earnings, just all coming in
[0:32] Speaker 2: on one day here. So we've been checking in with
[0:34] Speaker 2: a good friend, Herman Chain, who covers all the banks
[0:36] Speaker 2: for Bloomberg Intelligence. So I guess my takeaway Herman is
[0:41] Speaker 2: they beat expectations generally, which is and expectations were high
[0:45] Speaker 2: coming into this quarter. What are they saying about the
[0:48] Speaker 2: back half of the year. I guess that's probably the
[0:50] Speaker 2: bigger issue.
[0:51] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, that's the chief question on the earnings
[0:54] Speaker 3: cost today. We had robust results, knocked it out of
[0:57] Speaker 3: the park, particularly in equity trading. Can the spece sustained
[1:01] Speaker 3: at least from the JP Morgan earnings called earlier this morning?
[1:05] Speaker 3: Management said that while it's hard to replicate the second
[1:09] Speaker 3: quarter earnings results from equity trading in particular, there's still
[1:13] Speaker 3: a constructive backdrop. Some of the activity in the second
[1:16] Speaker 3: quarter was really driven by the trading activity from SpaceX
[1:21] Speaker 3: and the like. That may be a bit more idiosyncratic
[1:24] Speaker 3: to the quarter, but still really strong trading results expected
[1:27] Speaker 3: for the back happ of the year.
[1:28] Speaker 2: What are the banks of the big lending books like WACOVI,
[1:32] Speaker 2: like viave Lake City. What are you saying about the
[1:34] Speaker 2: credit quality out there?
[1:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, credit quality has been really strong. You see that
[1:38] Speaker 3: in Wells Fargo in particular. They're net charge offs for
[1:42] Speaker 3: the quarter of the loan losses were down about ten
[1:45] Speaker 3: basis points, and that was really led by much lower
[1:48] Speaker 3: commercial loan losses in particular. So the commercial borrowers have
[1:54] Speaker 3: been able to weather some of this economic concergency and
[1:57] Speaker 3: expectations for rates to be higher for longer. So we're
[2:01] Speaker 3: actually pretty assanguine about the credit quality for the group,
[2:04] Speaker 3: at least in the near intermediate term.
[2:06] Speaker 2: What are some of the return ratios that you and
[2:10] Speaker 2: bank investors look at, and then how are they trending
[2:12] Speaker 2: these days?
[2:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, returns and return on tangible common equity in particular
[2:17] Speaker 3: is the key banking metric that we look at, and
[2:19] Speaker 3: those were strong across the board. You see this in
[2:23] Speaker 3: JP Morgan's adjusted ROTC twenty three percent, their target over
[2:28] Speaker 3: the longer term seventeen percent. Even banks that are at
[2:32] Speaker 3: the lower end of the spectrum, banks like a City,
[2:35] Speaker 3: we're seeing ROTC at thirteen percent and their target for
[2:39] Speaker 3: the year is only ten to eleven percent. So they're
[2:43] Speaker 3: vastly outstripping their targets and their expectations, and that's happening
[2:47] Speaker 3: across the board for the banks that reported today.
[2:49] Speaker 2: All right, so in that context, how they're easing regulations
[2:55] Speaker 2: on the banks, how they impacted those their performing and
[3:00] Speaker 2: those types of ratios.
[3:01] Speaker 3: That's right. So that's another positive story for the banks,
[3:06] Speaker 3: particularly the big ones, where we have easing capital regulations,
[3:11] Speaker 3: that will create a more flexibility on the balance sheet.
[3:14] Speaker 3: So that's in terms of both buybacks, that's in terms
[3:18] Speaker 3: of dividends, that's in terms of increasing their lending capacity,
[3:22] Speaker 3: and that means there's a less equity component on the
[3:26] Speaker 3: balance sheet, which is inversely related to return, so returns
[3:30] Speaker 3: will go higher systematically because there's lower equity capital ratios.
[3:36] Speaker 3: So all in a really good story. You just saw
[3:38] Speaker 3: from the stress tests where we're after that in the aftermath,
[3:42] Speaker 3: banks really lifted their dividends by ten, eleven, twelve percent
[3:46] Speaker 3: across the board.
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