Banks start reporting Q3 earnings on Friday, but outlooks will take the spotlight

With the Federal Reserve cutting its policy rate for the first time in three years in Q3, banks are at a turning point. Net interest income will come under pressure, but lending, capital market activity, and investment banking are expected to pick up as financial conditions ease. Asset re-pricing due to the lower rates will also benefit banks' balance sheets.

For the six mega-banks — Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup (NYSE:C) , Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) — per-share earnings are expected to decline from Q2 2024. Compared with a year ago, only Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS) are expected to post higher EPS. Note that Goldman’s Q3 2023 earnings included a number of items related to its strategic plan, which included slashing the size of its consumer finance business.

While it’s too early for rate cuts to affect Q3 earnings, banks’ forward-looking comments, especially for net interest income ("NII") will be key, analysts said.

“NII outlook in a steadily declining rate scenario [is] for more important than Q3 results,” Morgan Stanley analyst Betsy Graseck wrote in a note to clients.

“Specifically, attention will turn to how the bank will perform in a steady, and faster rate decline scenarios and any related commentary is likely to be the primary driver of stock performance,” she said.

Rate cut deep dive

A deep dive into how the rate cut scenario is expected to affect banks’ earnings led Morgan Stanley to downgrade JPMorgan Chase (JPM) to Equal Weight and upgrade U.S. Bancorp (USB) to Overweight.

“Given how important deposit betas are to NIM, expect discussions on deposit betas and deposit pricing to drive outsized reactions during earnings, driving higher bank stock volatility during earnings and conferences through the rate cut cycle,” Grasek wrote.

Management comments

For example, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) management indicated on Sept. 10 that the consensus estimate of ~$90B for 2024 NII was too high.

Citi expects 2024 NII to decline “modestly” from 2023, with volume growth contributing to NII, excluding markets, offset by the impact of rates in Argentina and foreign exchange, and higher betas outside of the U.S., CFO Mark Mason said last month.

Wells Fargo (WFC) kept its 2024 NII guidance unchanged at a decline of 8%-9%, what CFO Mike Santomassimo called a “realistic range.”

Bank of America (BAC) estimates that NII reached a trough in Q2 and is now “positioned to continue to grow NII from there,” CFO Alastair Borthwick said at a conference last month.

Q3 core trends

Baird analyst David A. George expects Q3 results to reflect core trends of “better spread revenues, soft loan growth, broadly improving fees, higher expenses, and greater capital return in part due to accumulated other comprehensive income (“AOCI”) relief. “Group PPNR (preprovision net revenue) trends have inflected past the cyclical low, and investors are betting on the expected upside in future periods,” he said.

He’s expecting results to be generally in line with more dispersion than prior quarters.

CFRA analyst Kenneth Leon notes that NII is significant for Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and less so for Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS).

Now, with increased visibility into the Fed’s rate cut path and the health of the economy, Leon expects banks to refine their 2024 guidance for total NII to factor in the economy, the Fed’s rate cut path, and the volume activity across each bank’s businesses.

“Overall, we believe the global U.S. banks have diversified businesses (compared to the regional banks)

that allow noninterest income to be resilient and grow in areas like the capital markets, treasury or custodial services, or asset management and wealth management divisions,” the CFRA analyst said. “What we do not know is how equity investors will respond to bank stocks that are no longer benefiting from higher interest rate tailwinds, as lower rates become more of a headwind.”

Earnings calendar:

Friday, Oct. 11: premarket - JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), BlackRock (BLK), Bank of New York Mellon (BK)

Tuesday, Oct. 15: premarket - Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), Citigroup (C), Charles Schwab (SCHW), PNC Financial (PNC), State Street (STT)

Wednesday, Oct. 16: premarket - Morgan Stanley (MS), U.S. Bancorp (USB), Synchrony Financial (SYF), Citizens Financial Group (CFG), First Horizon (FHN); post-market - Discover Financial (DFS)

Thursday, Oct. 17: premarket - Truist Financial (TFC), M&T Bank (MTB), Huntington Bancshares (HBAN), KeyCorp (KEY); post-market - Western Alliance (WAL)

Friday, Oct. 18: premarket - American Express (AXP), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), Regions Financial (RF), Ally Financial (ALLY)

Wednesday, Oct. 23: premarket - Deutsche Bank (DB), Northern Trust (NTRS)

Thursday, Oct. 24: premarket - First Citizens BancShares (FCNCA); post-market - Capital One Financial (COF)

Tuesday, Oct. 29: premarket - HSBC (HSBC), SoFi Technologies (SOFI)

Wednesday, Oct. 30: premarket - UBS Group (UBS)