Earnings live: Big bank stocks fall, with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs results on deck

Bank stocks sold off on Wednesday as concerns about Federal Reserve independence and President Trump’s credit card rate cap proposal overshadowed what analysts viewed as pretty good fourth quarter results.

Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC) stocks fell by 5%, while Citigroup (C) shares dropped by more than 4%. Shares of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), which reported results on Tuesday, declined by around 1%.

The moves to the downside appeared to reflect negative sentiment from news headlines rather than a fundamental rebuke by the market of the banks’ results. “The only negative point was really investment banking,” B. Riley Wealth chief market strategist Art Hogan said of the big bank results, arguing that the segment could rebound in the coming quarters as deals get pushed out.

HSBC head of US financials research Saul Martinez attributed the earnings day underperformance of JPMorgan’s stock to policy “overhang” and high expectations going into the quarter.

“I think investors have grown to view policy as sort of a one-way dynamic towards deregulation and factors that are beneficial to banks,” Martinez told Yahoo Finance. “Some of the news flow over the weekend — the rate cap social media post and concerns about Fed independence — have now … had an impact perhaps on that view and reminded investors that policy changes can sometimes be risks as well.”

On Thursday, investors will complete the financial earnings picture with results from Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), and the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock (BLK). All three of those stocks were also trading lower on Wednesday ahead of their reports.

Even more big bank CEOs pushed back against President Trump’s proposal to cap credit card interest rates on Wednesday, echoing similar comments from JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum on Tuesday.

A chorus is beginning to form in the sector, with executives saying that while affordability is an issue, putting a 10% limit on credit card interest rates isn’t the right approach to solve it. They say the proposal would hurt the US economy — and their profits.

“An interest rate cap is not something that we would or could support, frankly,” Citigroup’s outgoing CFO Mark Mason said Wednesday, Yahoo Finance’s David Hollerith reported.

Such a move would “likely result in a significant slowdown in the economy,” Mason said, adding that “affordability is clearly an important issue and one that we look forward to collaborating with the administration on.”

“We’re all in for affordability,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told analysts on Wednesday while presenting the argument why limiting credit card interest rates would have adverse effects.

Read more here.

Citigroup (C) stock initially climbed on Wednesday morning but then fell 2% after reporting its profits declined 13% year over year in the fourth quarter, as the third-largest US bank recorded a loss of $1.2 billion on the sale of its Russia unit.

The major bank, which reported results after Wells Fargo (WFC) and Bank of America (BAC), posted net income of $2.5 billion and earnings per share of $1.19. Excluding the loss from the Russia-unit sale, Citi posted adjusted earnings per share of $1.86.

Analysts were expecting Citi to report GAAP earnings per share of $1.34 and normalized earnings per share of $1.62, according to consensus estimates from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

As Yahoo Finance’s David Hollerith reported, investment banking revenue climbed 35% to $1.29 billion, driven by a surge in its M&A advisory business. Its markets division, which houses trading operations, reported a 1% drop in trading fees over the fourth quarter compared to the year-ago period.

Citi’s earnings call begins at 11 a.m. ET. Listen to the call live here.

Banking giants Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC) reported fourth quarter earnings and rising annual profits on Wednesday morning. Bank of America stock rose about 1%, while Wells Fargo stock fell by the same amount.

Yahoo Finance’s David Hollerith reports:

Read more here.

Days after President Trump proposed capping credit card interest rates at 10%, corporate executives warned that the policy would have wide-ranging ramifications and possibly hurt consumers if enacted.

“If it happened the way it was described, it would be dramatic,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said on the company’s earnings call. JPMorgan is the nation’s top credit card issuer, handling $1.34 billion in purchase volume.

The company’s CFO, Jeremy Barnum, added that consumers would likely face service changes as a result, particularly credit card users with subprime risk profiles, who may face more financial instability.

“People will lose access to credit, like on a very, very extensive and broad basis, especially the people who need it the most, ironically,” Barnum said. “And so that’s a pretty severely negative consequence for consumers and, frankly, probably also a negative consequence for the economy as a whole right now.”

It’s unclear how Trump could implement a one-year credit card APR limit without legislation from Congress. To that end, on Tuesday, US ‌House Speaker ‌Mike Johnson took up the issue and said he would explore the president’s idea.

Johnson also acknowledged there could be “unintended consequences” of such a move — a sentiment echoed by Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian in the company’s earnings call on Tuesday.

Delta offers a co-branded credit card with American Express (AXP) that contributes an estimated 13% of its annual revenue. The partnership continues to be a lucrative one for Delta: Delta’s revenue from the card grew 11% year over year to $8.2 billion in 2025, the company reported Tuesday.

“I think one of the big issues and challenges with the potential order is the fact that it would actually restrict the lower-end consumer from having access to any credit, not just what the interest rate they’re paying, which would upend the whole credit card industry,” Bastian said. “So from our standpoint, we’ll be working closely with American Express, but I don’t see any way we could even begin to contemplate how that would be implemented.”

Yahoo Finance’s David Hollerith reports:

Read more here.

Investors are expecting a low-volatility earnings season, given softer option volumes over the past two weeks and balanced positioning, according to a Jan. 8 note on tactical earnings trades from the Goldman Sachs Investment Research team.

The analysts estimated the average implied earnings day stock move — how much the market expects a stock to swing following corporate results, based on options data — is 4.5% in either direction, below the long-term average.

“With less fear priced in, it is more difficult to see relief rallies on earnings days,” they wrote.

Still, the Goldman Sachs team noted that having exposure to stocks through their earnings events remains important for fundamental investors. Just two quarters ago, the actual moves on earnings days for individual stocks were at their highest level since 2009.

Where the team does expect more volatility is in utility, healthcare, materials, and industrial stocks, which “have been making the most unusually large moves on earnings-day in recent quarters.”

The major financial institutions are penciled in to report fourth quarter results this week, including the nation’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), which is expected to reveal another year of record revenue and one of its best years in profits.

Other major financial firms, including Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Wells Fargo (WFC), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Morgan Stanley (MS), are also expected to reveal just how good 2025 was for investment bankers.

Yahoo Finance’s David Hollerith previews what to expect:

Read the full bank earnings preview here.

A slate of earnings reports from the major financial institutions marks the unofficial start of earnings season. But investors will also get an early read of the airline industry, chipmakers, and logistics operators from other corporate earnings beginning to flow this week.

Here’s a look at the earnings calendar for the week of Jan. 12:

Tuesday: JPMorgan Chase (JPM), BNY Mellon (BK), Delta Air Lines (DAL), Concentrix Corporation (CNXC), Phoenix Education Partners (PXED)

Wednesday: Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC), Citigroup (C), Infosys (INFY), Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), Home Bancshares (HOMB), Platinum Group Metals (PLG)

Thursday: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), BlackRock (BLK), JB Hunt Transport Services (JBHT), First Horizon Corporation (FHN)

Friday: PNC Financial (PNC), State Street (STT), M&T Bank (MTB), Wipro (WIT), Regions Financial (RF), BOK Financial (BOKF)