Financial reports of the big banks supported Wall Street markets

Wall Street markets recorded a positive session after investors welcomed the strong quarterly reports of major Goldman Sachs and Bank of America banks.

The blue-chip index Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 137 points after Goldman Sachs made a very strong performance. The broader index S&P 500 recorded an increase of 0.2% thanks to the 2.2% growth in the financial sector. The technology index Nasdaq Composite rose by 0.15%.

On bond markets, the yields rose after the news that British Prime Minister Theresa May survived a vote of no confidence in her government. The yields on 10-year government Treasuries rose to 2.72%, while the returns of 30-year government bonds reached 3.06%.

In the forex markets, the dollar appreciated against the euro after the single currency was under pressure because of concerns over the Eurozone economy. At the same time, the pound remained strong after the vote in the British Parliament.

The dollar index, which measures the value of the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose slightly to 95,722 points.

Corporate stocks performance

The US bank Goldman Sachs reported excellent results for the quarter, which send the stocks prices up by 9.54%, which is the best trading day for the bank since 2009.

Bank of America's stock also rose 7.16% after a record quarterly profit.

At the same time, the stocks of United Continental rose by more than 6% after the company posted a better-than-expected report. This supported the prices of both Delta Air Lines and American Air Lines.

Charles Schwab topped Q4 estimates on Wednesday, sending shares more than 2% higher in morning trade. The retail brokerage firm advanced further above its 50-day line.

Among the worst performing were Green Dot and Edwards Lifesciences, which wiped out 2% and 3% from their market capitalization.

Corporate earnings reports

Slightly more than 6% of S&P companies have published their reports for the last quarter. Of these, 85.3% reported better than expected figures on revenues and earnings.

The US bank Goldman Sachs report profit of 6.04 USD per share for the fourth quarter, versus the 4.45 USD estimate of analysts. The revenue of 8.08 billion USD also beat expectations of the analysts for 7.55 billion USD. The bank posted 2.04 billion USD in revenue in its investment banking division, fueled by a 56% surge in advisory revenue to 1.20 billion USD. Goldman Sachs is Wall Street's pre-eminent mergers adviser, and the firm cited an increase in completed deals in the quarter. But the lion's share of Goldman's revenue beat appeared to come from the bank's investing and lending division, which contains a grab-bag of businesses from consumer banking to private equity investments and low-income housing projects. The division produced 1.91 billion USD in revenue, which is 550 million more than expected. Goldman's trading division produced 2.43 billion USD in revenue, under the 2.58 billion USD estimate as fixed income desks generated 18% less revenue from a year earlier. The firm's investment management business produced 1.7 billion USD in revenue.

Bank of America reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue for the fourth quarter thanks to the strong performance of retail banking. Bank of America's quarterly profit has tripled to a record 7.3 billion USD after the company's results were heavily stimulated by the fall in federal corporate tax that came into force by the end of 2017. The bank also said it had stepped to the redemption of ordinary shares worth 26 billion USD. Bank of America's retail banking business grew 52% YoY to 3.3 billion USD. The net revenue of the company has reached 22.7 billion USD compared to the projected 22.397 billion USD. Earnings per share are 0.73 USD against expected by the analysts 0.63 USD.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://financeandmarkets.com/financial-reports-of-the-big-banks-supported-wall-street-markets/

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