Banks, Quarterly Earnings | featured news

Bank of America has reported a sharp rise in profits after it shed costs and set aside less money for bad loans. The bank reported first quarter net income of $2.3bn (£1.5bn), after making $328m in the same quarter a year ago.

Fannie Mae earned $17.2 billion last year, the biggest annual profit in the U.S. mortgage giant's history, helped by a record fourth quarter.

If the latest week of earnings season has told investors anything, it is that strong banks and energy companies are getting stronger, while weaker banks and technology companies are far from conquering the challenges they have faced in the last few years.

Citigroup Inc said quarterly profit plunged on a $4.7 billion write-down of its stake in a brokerage operated by Morgan Stanley, but mortgage lending increased and capital markets results rebounded.

Two of the nation's largest banks released third-quarter results that suggest the U.S. housing market, a key factor in the nation's economic performance, is bouncing back as mortgage rates hit record lows and home refinancings surge.

Finally moving beyond a trading debacle that has stained his once-stellar reputation, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, on Friday trumpeted a strong quarter of earnings stemming from a surge in mortgage lending.

As the government expands its support of the housing market, analysts expect that mortgage profits at banks will rise in third-quarter earnings reports and will continue well into next year.

Here’s something that may (or may not) surprise about you about banks: They’re raking in profits like it’s 2007. It's not such a rosy environment for banks once you cut a little deeper into the numbers. The latest data from the FDIC show banks taking in net income of $34.5 billion in the second quarter of 2012, that’s up $5.9 billion from from the second quarter of 2011.

Goldman Sachs says its net income fell 11 percent in the April-to-June period after the investment bank's clients made fewer deals and avoided volatility in global financial markets. The New York bank said its net income fell to $962 million, or $1.78 per share, for the quarter. That compares with $1.09 billion, or $1.85 per share, a year ago. It's also far more than the $1.17 per share that analysts were expecting.

Citigroup Inc reported lower second-quarter profit on Monday as the big banking group lost money on the sale of a stake in a Turkish bank and suffered from the drag of its troubled assets left over from the 2008 credit crisis.