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US STOCKS-Wall Street ends mixed despite bumper bank earnings

Published 04/15/2021, 04:00 AM
Updated 04/15/2021, 04:10 AM
© Reuters.
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* Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo up as profits jumps
* JPMorgan falls despite profit surging nearly five-fold
* Coinbase soars on Nasdaq listing

(Adds comments, details, updates to afternoon)
By Shivani Kumaresan, Shreyashi Sanyal and David French
April 14 (Reuters) - Wall Street indexes closed mixed on
Wednesday, with the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC and S&P 500 .SPX
falling despite another record intraday high for the latter and
big banks' stellar results on the first day of earnings season.
Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS.N and Wells Fargo &
Co WFC.N rose on bumper first-quarter profits.
Goldman capitalized on record levels of global dealmaking
activity, and Wells reduced bad loan provisions and got a grip
on costs tied to its sales practices scandal. JPMorgan Chase & Co's JPM.N shares fell despite the
largest U.S. bank's earnings jumping almost 400%, as it released
more than $5 billion in reserves to cover coronavirus-driven
loan defaults. "The bank earnings were strong, but the market expected them
to be strong," said Christopher Grisanti, chief equity
strategist at MAI Capital Management.
"So the question becomes how do the bank stocks rise more
from here. That's not clear. They have had a nice ride. I think
there will be other places to make money more easily in the
future."
Despite bumper trading and investment-banking revenue,
lending by both JP Morgan and Wells Fargo fell from a year ago.
Investors will be watching this metric carefully in the upcoming
earnings of smaller banks, which are more focused on traditional
lending and deposit-taking.
The KBW Regional Banking Index .KRX has outperformed the
KBW Bank Index .BKX year to date, although the latter - which
represents 24 of the largest U.S. banks - has beaten the index
of smaller institutions over the last month.
"Financials have done well for a while, so we're happy with
that now, but will we reach a point of diminishing returns in
that sector? I don't know," said Drew Horter, president and
chief investment officer of Tactical Fund Advisors in
Cincinnati.
The S&P 500 financials sector .SPSY was one of the first
quarter's best performers, rising 15% even as the Federal
Reserve pledged to keep interest rates low in the near future.
It rose on Wednesday.
The S&P 500 energy sector .SPNY was the largest gainer
among the 11 sub-indexes, as it tracked higher oil prices. O/R
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose
54.87 points, or 0.16%, to 33,732.14, the S&P 500 .SPX lost
16.75 points, or 0.40%, at 4,124.84 and the Nasdaq Composite
.IXIC dropped 138.26 points, or 0.99%, to 13,857.84.
The Nasdaq was weighed by technology-related stocks,
including Apple Inc AAPL.O , Microsoft Corp MSFT.O and Tesla
Inc TSLA.O .
Coinbase Global Inc COIN.O jumped upon its listing on the
Nasdaq on Wednesday. Its shares opened at $381 versus a
reference price of $250. Cryptocurrency and blockchain-related firms including Riot
Blockchain RIOT.O and Marathon Digital Holdings MARA.O fell
after soaring ahead of Coinbase's debut and as bitcoin hit a
record high of over $63,000 on Tuesday.

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