— This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on October 15, Wednesday.
Welcome to the CNBC Business Daily, I'm Qian Chen.
JPMorgan, Citi and Wells reporting results overnight.
2 out of 3 beating expectations.
CNBC's Mary THompson breaks it down.
A miss from JP morgan, stronger than expected results from Citi and in line profit numbers from Wells Fargo.. Citi was the best performer on the session. This after the banking giant said that it's closing consumer banking operations in 11 countries including Japan, the Czech Republic and Peru. It's also scaling back operations in Korea where it will no longer be making personal loans. Now Citi still retains a sizeable global footprint, though, with consumer operations in 41 countries. But keep in mind these moves are seen helping the firm with the stress test. It happens here in the U.S.. It failed it this year in part because Citi's far flung operations are seen as a pretty great risk by U.S. regulators.
Now on the earnings front, turnaround profit in Citi holdings, which is its group of troubled assets along with strength and investment banking and equity trading... all helped to fuel positive Q3 results. Earnings of $1.15 a share worth 3 cents ahead of estimates.
Wells Fargo results -- well, they were solid, if not spectacular. The U.S.' largest mortgage lender earned $1.02 a share, as expected. Net interest margin or the profit the bank makes from lending its deposit that it pays interest on, the net interest margin narrowed from a year ago. That's a bit of a concern to investors who pushed some pressure on the stock. And speaking of deposits, they did grow in the quarter. Fortunately too, so did loans. They were up 3.7% at Wells Fargo. Within its powerful mortgage unit, its home lending operations tumbled $48 billion from $80 billion dollars last year.
[John Shrewsberry, Wells Fargo CFO] "$48 BILLION WORTH OF MORTGAGE PRODUCTION IS A GOOD NUMBER, AND THE PROFIT GENERATED FROM THAT BUSINESS ACTUALLY DID VERY WELL IN THE QUARTER. OUR BUSINESS, IT'S MORE OF A PURCHASE MARKET AND WE'RE SET UP WITH THAT ON THE MORTGAGE SIDE. WE LIKE WHERE WE ARE AND HOW THEY PERFORM OR HOW ALL OTHER COMPETITORS PERFORM QUARTER TO QUARTER ISN'T OUR CONCERN. WE'RE THE NUMBER ONE PLAYER IN THE MORTGAGE MARKET AND WE LIKE THAT.
As for JPMorgan, higher legal expenses took a bite out of its Q3 results. The bank reporting 1 billion in unexpected legal costs it said are for resolving govt investigations into rigging in the forex markets. Profits of $1.36 a share were 2 cents below forecasts, revenue though, did increase by 5%, helped by improvements in the bank's trading businesses. This helped to offset weakness in its mortgage banking business as well.
So again, a mixed bag. What a lot of people saw though were improvements in the trading operations which were so weak in last year's Q3 in large part because remember we were preparing for thar shutdown of the government and the start of Fed's wind down of bond buying program. So the market was very quiet from the trading front in the last year's 3rd quarter. Some improvement in this year's Q3 volatility pick up. Back to you.
I'm Qian Chen, reporting from CNBC's Asian headquarters.
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