Financial Earnings Winners & Losers (BLK, JPM, NITE, MER, WFC)

BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) posted a 25% gain in earnings, but reported $1.90 EPS versus $2.00 estimates; Assets under management are now $1.364 Trillion.  Shares are trading down by 2% pre-market.

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) $0.69 EPS vs. $0.64 est.; $2.6 Billion markdowns; expect weakness to continue and expects capital market stress to continue; sees issues affecting results for remainder of 2008 or longer; shares are trading up over 2% in pre-market.

Knight Capital Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: NITE) $0.35 EPS vs. $0.30 estimates; trading volume surged in dollar terms and decreased in volume for march, noted de-leveraging of financial markets; stock trading up over 6% pre-market.

Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) is taking another $6.8 Billion in write-offs according to WSJ, although shares are up almost 1% pre-market.

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) posted an 11% decrease in earnings but earnings were $0.60 EPS vs $0.57 est; setting aside $2.03 billion to cover delinquencies and defaults among mortgages and other loans; non-performing assets up 16% to $4.5 billion as of March 31, up from $3.87 billion at December 31, 2007; Shares are trading up over 7% in pre-market trading.

Jon C. Ogg
April 16, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter.  He can be reached at [email protected] and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.