Wells Fargo Up after Posting Strong Earnings

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) shares are rallying over 3% in morning trade after the company reported better than expected fourth quarter profits and revenues. The company said fourth quarter profit rose to $4.11 billion, or 73 cents per share, compared with $3.41 billion, or 61 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. This bettered analyst estimates by 1 cent a share.

Revenue slipped 4 percent to $20.61 billion from $21.49 billion a year earlier. That still bettered analyst forecasts calling for $20 billion in revenues. The company’s credit quality improved from the year ago as write offs fell by almost $1.24 billion. “That’s something we’re going to watch,” said Paul Miller, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets. While the figure shows gains from a year ago, he said, the improvements in overall credit quality slowed down considerably toward the end of the year, he said.

Net interest margin, or the spread between the money Wells earns on interest and that which it pays out, surprisingly rose to 3.89 percent, from 3.84 percent in the third quarter, during a period of low interest rates. FBR’s Miller said the strong increase in net interest margin was surprising. “We would expect it to continue to feel pressure in this interest rate environment,” he said.

“I’m extremely pleased with Wells Fargo’s performance in 2011 – including strong deposit and loan growth, record cross-sell and record earnings,” said Chairman and CEO John Stumpf. “We achieved these results while completing the conversion of Wachovia’s retail banking stores – the largest such conversion in banking history – and now all of our 6,239 retail banking stores are on a single platform serving customers coast to coast. At the time of the merger, we said the integration of Wachovia would take three years and we are right on track. I couldn’t be prouder of how our two companies have come together as one, thanks to the important and tireless work of our more than 260,000 team members.

“In 2012, we are focused on Wells Fargo’s many opportunities, including continuing to provide our customers with award winning service, welcoming new customers as we grow market share throughout our many businesses and geographies, achieving efficiency improvements across the company and returning even more capital to our shareholders.” He added.

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Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.