Here’s what to expect when banks report earnings, and how cheap their stocks are now

JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPM
will kick off the banking industry’s third-quarter earnings season on Oct. 13 before the market open, with Citigroup Inc.
C
and Wells Fargo & Co.
WFC
also reporting that day. Bank of America Corp.
BAC
and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
GS
will report on Oct. 17, and Morgan Stanley
MS
will round out the “big six” U.S. banks with its third-quarter earnings announcement on Oct. 18.

Below are tables showing what analysts expect for the largest 20 U.S. banks by total assets. But first let’s look at stock performance and valuations.

Big bank stocks are cheap

Here are weighted forward price-to-earnings valuations for the 11 sectors of the S&P 500

sectors and broad stock indexes with a comparison of current valuations to 5- and 10-year averages:

The financial sector has the second lowest P/E of the 11 sectors and is trading at 71% the valuation for the full S&P 500. But that type of discount for the sector is typical. Now let’s look at the largest 20 U.S. banks by June 30 total assets and see how their current forward P/E ratios stack up to their longer-term averages:

Click on the tickers for more about each company or index.

Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on the MarketWatch quote page.

The largest 20 banks are all trading at forward P/E valuations that are considerably lower than their 5- and 10-year averages, except for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

One factor that may have helped push P/E valuations lower has been the curtailment of share buybacks, as banks build up capital to comply with new regulations. Buybacks lower share counts and increase earnings per share, hopefully to support rising share prices. But buybacks don’t always pay off.

The rise in interest rates, which has pressured some banks because of the decline in value of their securities portfolios and increasing funding costs, will end eventually. Your decision on whether or not to invest in bank stocks may hinge upon your expectations for when the Federal Reserve will stop raising rates to combat inflation, or when an economic slowdown might cause the central bank to lower the federal-funds rate, currently in a target range of 5.25% to 5.50%.

But you can be sure that as soon as the Fed makes a clear change in policy, banks will lower their deposit rates quickly, to enhance their net interest margins.

Another way to compare bank stocks is by price to book value, or tangible book value, which removes intangible assets, such as loan servicing rights and goodwill from the denominator. Here is a comparison of current forward price/tangible book ratios stack up to their longer-term averages :

Citigroup is trading at less than half tangible book value, which is considerably lower than its five- and 10-year averages. Prior to the 2008-2009 financial crisis, the bank had a long history of making expensive acquisitions that didn’t pan out well. And it was forced to raise so much capital following its extraordinary government bailout during the financial crisis, that most of its pre-2008 common equity was wiped out. This means the 20-year total return for the stock has been negative 87%.

The company has been profitable for years, now, and its current CEO Jane Fraser is the latest of several who have been attempting to right-size the bank and bring expenses under control. As you can see in the next table, most analysts working for brokerage firms aren’t sold on Citi’s prospects, even at such a low valuation.

Analysts’ favorite big-bank stocks

Leaving the 20 largest U.S. banks in the same order, here are summaries of ratings and consensus price targets among analysts polled by FactSet:

Keep in mind that the ratings and consensus price targets among analysts working for brokerage firms are usually for the next 12 months. That may be too short a time for a contrarian bounceback play for the financial sector.

Only 37% of analysts polled by FactSet rate Citi’s stock a buy or the equivalent. One of the believers is Odeon Capital Group analyst Dick Bove. In a note to clients on Oct. 2, Bove wrote: “The stock is now selling at a 57.7% discount to book value and a 73.2% discount to cash on hand. The company’s earnings power is estimated to be $8 billion to $12 billion. This makes it one of the safest and most profitable companies, of all types, in the United States.”

Bove made it clear that he thinks Citi is an appropriate investment for people who can commit for a period of years, because he believes “it will take 12 to 15 months for the company to produce a definable growth path.” As if to emphasize that Citi’s shareholders could be in for a rough ride over the short term, he added that “second half earnings could be quite disappointing” because of the “deeply troubled” financial condition of the U.S., including the lingering risk of a government shutdown, challenges to the banking industry from rising costs for funding, and a harsh regulatory environment.

Earnings estimates

Let’s round up expectations for the largest 20 banks for third-quarter results. First, here are consensus estimates for third-quarter earnings per share, with actual results for the previous four quarters:

Only two of the largest 20 U.S. banks are expected to report third-quarter EPS higher than the previous quarter and year-earlier quarter: American Express Co.
AXP
and First Citizens BancShares Inc.
FCNCA
of Raleigh, N.C.

Here are expected net income levels in millions of dollars for the third quarter, with actual profits for the previous four quarters:

JPMorgan Chase’s second-quarter earnings were boosted by a $2.7 billion bargain purchase gain from its acquisition of the failed First Republic Bank of San Francisco from the FDIC.

Among the Big Six U.S. banks, only JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are expected to show increased third-quarter profits from a year earlier.

Interest margins

A bank’s net interest margin is the difference between its average yield on loans and deposits and its average cost for funding, made up of deposits and wholesale borrowing. This is an important measure of profitability. During the second quarter, the U.S. banking industry’s net interest margin was 3.28%, compared with 3.31% the previous quarter and 2.80% a year earlier, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s Quarterly Banking Profile.

Net interest margins aren’t calculated in a uniform manner in banks’ earnings filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. So here are the largest banks’ estimated net interest income (NII, interest income less interest expense) divided by estimated average earning assets (AEA, including loans and securities investments) for the third quarter and actual numbers for the previous four quarters, as calculated by FactSet:

The largest four U.S. banks are all expected to show improved NIM from a year earlier, however, only JPMorgan Chase among that group is expected to show improvement from the previous quarter.

Charles Schwab Corp.
SCHW
has been hit hard by NIM contraction, as brokerage customers have moved money from the company’s bank subsidiary in search of higher yields. It is easy for a client to shop for CD or money market yields among many banks, within a brokerage account. This phenomenon is known as “cash sorting,” and KBW analyst Kyle Voigt wrote in a note to clients on Oct. 2 that he believed the brokerage industry was in the “latter innings” of cash sorting for this interest-rate cycle. He added that Schwab’s NIM would benefit as it repaid expensive short-term borrowings taken earlier this year to cover deposit outflows and from reinvestment as lower-yielding bond investments matured. Voigt gave Schwab an “outperform” rating with a $75 price target.

Net interest income

Here are the estimates and actual numbers for NII, with lofty expectations for JPMorgan Chase and a large year-over-year increase for First Citizens BancShares, which acquired deposits and loans from the failed Silicon Valley Bank in a deal arranged by the FDIC. Dollar amounts are in millions.

JPM is one of only four among the largest 20 U.S. banks expected to report sequential increases in quarterly NII, and it is the only one expected to show four consecutive quarters of sequential increases.

Setting aside money for expected loan losses

Every quarter, a bank will make provisions for loan loss reserves (LLR), which are additions to reserves to cover expected losses on problem loans. A provision directly lowers pretax income, while a negative provision raises earnings. During an economic rebound, it isn’t unusual to see earnings boosted from negative provisions for several quarters.

From the estimates, analysts seem to expect a cooling of reserving activity for the third quarter:

According to the FDIC, the annualized pace of net charge-offs (loan losses less recoveries) to average loans increased to 0.48% during the second quarter from 0.41% the previous quarter and 0.23% in the year-earlier quarter.

Noncurrent loans (those past due 90 days or more, or those for which a bank doesn’t expect to collect interest or principal) made up 0.76% of total loans as of June 30, up slightly from 0.75% at the end of March and also at the end of June 2022.

Here’s an FDIC chart showing the movement of loan quality and net charge-off from 2008 through the second quarter:

Noninterest income

The largest banks have broader business lines that can help them maintain earnings power even if the interest-rate environment is unfavorable. Noninterest income includes investment banking and trading revenue, as well as well as asset-management and custody fees. Here are available estimates and actuals for the largest 20 U.S. banks’ noninterest income, in millions:

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