Wells Fargo WFC Q4 2024 Earnings

Wells Fargo shares rose on Wednesday after the bank posted better-than-expected earnings and issued strong guidance for net interest income for 2025.

Here’s what the bank reported for the fourth quarter compared to Wall Street expectations, based on a survey of LSEG analysts:

• Adjusted earnings per share: $1.58 vs. $1.35 expected
• income: $20.38 billion versus the expected $20.59 billion

Net income rose 47% to $5.1 billion, or $1.43 per share, from $3.45 billion, or 86 cents per share, a year ago. After excluding weekend expenses of 15 cents per share, Well Fargo earned $1.58 per share, beating the consensus estimate reported by LSEG. Revenue was down slightly to $20.38 billion from last year.

The San Francisco-based lender said it expects net interest income, a key measure of how much a bank makes on loans, to be 1-3% higher in 2025 than in 2024 at 47 .7 billion dollars.

Wells shares jumped more than 5% on Wednesday.

“Our strong performance this quarter capped a year of strong progress for Wells Fargo,” CEO Charlie Scharf said in a statement. “Our revenue profile continues to improve, we’re benefiting from the investments we’re making to increase our growth and improve how we serve our customers and communities, we’ve maintained a strong balance sheet, we’ve returned approximately $25 billion of capital to shareholders, and we’ve achieved significant progress in risk and control work’.

Wells Fargo’s investment banking fees jumped 59% to $725 million in the fourth quarter from a year earlier.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, the bank repurchased 57.8 million shares of common stock, or $4 billion.

The bank’s shares are up nearly 43% in 2024, and the stock is up 6% in January.

Correction: Wells Fargo earned $1.58 per share on an adjusted basis. An earlier version of this story excluded other items from the quarterly results, but analysts are only adjusting for weekend spending, according to LSEG.