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Largest banks see drop in revenues despite beating analysts’ estimates

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The largest percentage drop in quarterly revenues in three years, driven by lower lending and reduced fees, is damping investor appetite for shares of the six largest U.S. banks, Bloomberg reported.

Net revenues at the six lenders – Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley – fell 13.3 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Five of the banks beat analysts’ estimates, and JPMorgan and Wells Fargo reported record quarterly earnings, but anemic revenues and a steady drop in pre-provision profits have kept investors at bay. Since April 13, the KBW Bank Index of the 24 largest U.S. banks has fallen 3.5 percent.

“You’re seeing people backing off of exposure to this space because of the lack of loan growth and poor revenue growth,” said Paul Miller, a former examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and an analyst for FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Va. “It’s not a sell-off – it’s more of a slow drift down.”

Wells Fargo shares have slipped 5 percent since the San Francisco-based lender reported a 48 percent gain in first-quarter net income on April 20. At least $1 billion of Wells Fargo’s record earnings came from releasing reserves that had been set aside for bad loans.