Can Big Banks End the Bear Market?
Investors have looked forward to earnings season for quite a while now, hoping to get actual evidence about how macroeconomic conditions are affecting companies in specific industries. This week saw the official beginning of third-quarter earnings season, and among the earliest reports were those from several major U.S. banks.
In particular, Friday brought the latest reports from JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), and both of those bank stocks showed solid gains even on a down day on Wall Street. The news each bank gave wasn't unequivocally positive, but investors took their results with a measure of hope that the financial industry won't face systemic threats that could create a slew of unexpected problems in the months and years ahead.
Shares of JPMorgan rose nearly 3% by midday on Friday, making back some of their losses over the past several months. The Wall Street giant's third-quarter results were better than most investors had expected to see, although comments from CEO Jamie Dimon continued to force investors to consider the potential future impacts of deteriorating economic conditions.
Source Fool.com
