Wells Fargo Reports Mixed Q4 Results

Wells Fargo & Co WFC traded relatively flat Tuesday morning after the bank reported mixed fourth-quarter results.

What Happened

Wells Fargo said it earned $1.21 per share in the fourth quarter on revenue of $20.98 billion. The results were mixed against the Street's expectations of $1.19 per share and revenue of $21.75 billion.

Net income for the fourth quarter dipped from $6.2 billion last year to $6.1 billion while revenue also fell from $22.1 billion last year. Interest income in the fourth quarter improved by $72 million from the third quarter to $12.6 billion, mostly due to the benefits of higher average interest rates and favorable hedge ineffectiveness accounting results.

Noninterest income in the fourth quarter was down by $1 billion from the third quarter to $8.3 billion due to lower market sensitive revenue, mortgage banking fees and trust and investment fees.

During the quarter average deposits were down 3 percent from last year to $1.3 trillion and average loans were down 1 percent to $946.3 billion.

Why It's Important

Despite a mixed performance in the quarter, Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said the company made "meaningful Improvements" across multiple internal controls, including risk management, operational and compliance risk. The company also saw an improvement in customer service where branch survey scores hit a two-year high in December.

What's Next

Wells Fargo continues to work towards improving its damaged brand in the wake of one of the biggest banking scandals in U.S. history. Sloan said in the earnings report he is "confident that we'll continue to make Wells Fargo even better in 2019" and the bank will meet its financial objectives including expense targets in 2019.

Shares traded around $48.00 at time of publication.

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