Big Banks Report Earnings This Week: What Should You Expect?

• JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM will announce its fourth quarter –fiscal 2015- financial results before the market opens on Thursday.
• Wells Fargo & Co WFC, Citigroup Inc C and U.S. Bancorp USB are doing the same on Friday morning, before the bell.
• So, let’s take a look into what the Street and the crowd are expecting from these reports.

Big banks are reporting their fourth quarter financial results this week – on Thursday and Friday. Ahead of the earnings calls, let’s take a look at what the Street and the crowd are expecting from them.

JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan will be the first to report, on Thursday morning. The financial holding company is expected to deliver a year-over-year increase in earnings of at least 9 percent, from $1.19 per share in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014, to at least $1.30 per share in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015.

While the Street’s consensus stands at $1.30 per share, the crowd is even more bullish, and anticipates earnings of $1.36 per share on revenue of $23.262 billion. The Street, on the other hand, is modeling consensus revenue of $23.095 billion. Both these estimates imply an increase from the $22.5 billion in revenue seen a year ago.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo, for its part, is reporting earnings on Friday morning and, while the Street is projecting flat year-over-year earnings of $1.02 per share on revenue of $21.735 billion – slightly up from last year’s $21.68 billion, the crowd envisions a small increase in both figures, to $1.04 per share and $21.826 billion.

One thing should be noted from the chart above: over the past eight quarters, the company has tended to either meet or beat estimates.

Citigroup

Also reporting on Friday morning is Citigroup, which has an easy job doing better than it did in the fourth quarter last year, when it delivered earnings of $0.06 per share on revenue of $17.81 billion. Although expectations for the current quarter point towards a sequential decline, they still imply a large surge from the figures above.

For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, the Street is modeling consensus earnings of $1.14 per share on revenue of $18.027 billion, while the crowd is projecting earnings of $1.19 per share on revenue of $18.159 billion.

U.S. Bancorp       

Finally, there’s U.S. Bancorp, which is expected to do only slightly better than a year ago. The Street envisions consensus earnings of $0.79 per share -- up from $0.78 per share reported last year. However, experts anticipate revenue will fall marginally year-over-year to $5.111 billion, down from $5.17 billion.

The crowd is somewhat more bullish, and projects consensus earnings of $0.81 per share on revenue of $5.144 billion.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.