Wall Street's Biggest Banks Start Earnings Season

As we saw during yesterday’s closed market futures activity, the Dow looks to gain over 200 points out of the gate this morning. This follows a 200+ gain — and new record high — on Friday as Q4 earnings from some of Wall Street’s biggest banks kicked off a new season of earnings reports.

Ahead of Tuesday’s opening bell — starting a new holiday-shortened week as Q4 earnings season heats up — we look toward a small amount of earnings results, but from key companies. After today’s close, we look toward CSX Corp. (NASDAQ:CSX) , UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) and Pinnacle Finance PNFT earnings. Already this morning, we see two Q4 results from the banking world.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) posted a beat on both top and bottom lines in its Q4 report, with earnings of $1.28 per share topping the $1.19 expected and the $1.14 from the year-ago quarter. Revenues for the final calendar quarter of 2018 brought in $17.3 billion, slightly ahead of the $17.1 billion in the Zacks consensus estimate.

The banking major took a one-time charge of $22 billion ($8.43 per share, non-cash) to account for adjusted deferred taxes based on the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Higher revenues and slightly lower expenses helped the bank beat quarterly estimates. For more on Citi’s earnings results, click here.

Comerica (NYSE:CMA) is another finance company reporting Q4 earnings this morning, and also surpassed expectations: $1.28 per share beat the Zacks consensus by 7 cents, and revenues in the quarter were way out in front of estimates, $830 million versus the expected $819.6 million. This result also represents a 15% year-over-year gain in quarterly revenues.

Over the previous 4 quarters, the Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy)-rated Comerica had posted an average earnings beat of 10.1%. The bank also declared a charge based on the new tax law to the tune of $107 million. For more on Comerica’s earnings results, click here.