Shares of the bank rose more than 3% in premarket trading after the results. The better-than-expected earnings came even with a sizeable decline in net interest income, a key measure of what a bank makes on lending.
The San Francisco-based lender posted $11.69 billion in net interest income, marking an 11% decrease from the same quarter last year that was less than the FactSet estimate of $11.9 billion. Wells said the decline was due to higher funding costs amid customer migration to higher-yielding deposit products.
"Our earnings profile is very different than it was five years ago as we have been making strategic investments in many of our businesses and de-emphasizing or selling others," CEO Charles Scharf said in a statement."Our revenue sources are more diverse and fee-based revenue grew 16% during the first nine months of the year, largely offsetting net interest income headwinds."Wells saw net income fall to $5.11 billion, or $1.42 per share, in the third quarter, from $5.
The bank set aside $1.07 billion as a provision for credit losses compared with $1.20 billion last year. Wells repurchased $3.5 billion of common stock in the third quarter, bringing the nine-month total to more than $15 billion, which marks a 60% increase from a year ago.This is the cost of carrying too much cash, according to Wells Fargo10-year Treasury yield is little changed as investors await producer prices data