Back to top

Image: Bigstock

The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Bank of America, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Greenhill

Read MoreHide Full Article

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL –December 7, 2018 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Bank of America (BAC - Free Report) , JPMorgan (JPM - Free Report) , Citigroup (C - Free Report) and Greenhill & Co., Inc. .

Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

Big Banks' Trading Outlook Indicates Mixed Q4 Performance

On Wednesday, at the 2018 Goldman Sachs US Financial Services Conference in New York, top executives of Bank of America, JPMorgan and Citigroup presented the companies’ Q4 trading outlook.

At the conference, Brian Moynihan — chief executive officer at BofA — stated that the company’s capital markets revenues are likely to increase year over year in the fourth quarter. However, things might turn around, depending on activities in December. Furthermore, the bank is likely to keep benefiting from disposing excess capital using share buybacks.

At the same conference, JPMorgan’s CEO — Jamie Dimon — announced the company’s outlook for the fourth quarter per which trading revenues are expected to be flat year over year.

Meanwhile, contrary to peers, Citigroup’s chief financial officer John Gerspach commenting on the outlook said market revenues are likely to be low on a year-over-year basis, impacted by reduced fixed-income market revenue. However, Citigroup’s equity business is on an upswing.

"We had anticipated we would actually see year-over-year revenue growth in fixed income and equity markets," he said. "But while we've maintained, I'd say, good engagement with the clients, we just haven't seen that transition into transaction activity at the rate at which we had hoped."

Moreover, pressured market-sensitive revenues are likely to impact the bank’s aim of accomplishing its efficiency targets, per Gerspach. "The tight timeframe of having the ability to react could put us just a little bit short," he said.

Additionally, Gerspach expects investment banking revenues to be up sequentially on strong M&A though it might decline slightly year over year.

Conclusion

Banks are skeptical about the fourth quarter amid global market turmoil and uncertainty over ongoing developments, including easing of regulations along with expectations of slowdown in the economy and inflation worries.

Notably, shares of BofA, Citigroup and JPMorgan lost around 10.3%, 9% and 3.2%, respectively, in the last six months.

Among the abovementioned stocks, Citigroup and JPMorgan carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) while BofA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

A top-ranked finance stock is Greenhill & Co., Inc., which has been witnessing upward estimate revisions in the past 60 days. Moreover, this Zacks #1 Ranked stock has rallied more than 19% year to date.

More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone!

It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market.

Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2020.

Click here for the 6 trades >>

Media Contact

Zacks Investment Research

800-767-3771 ext. 9339

support@zacks.com                                      

http://www.zacks.com                                                   

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit http://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.


See More Zacks Research for These Tickers


Normally $25 each - click below to receive one report FREE:


Bank of America Corporation (BAC) - free report >>

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) - free report >>

Citigroup Inc. (C) - free report >>

Published in