Best & Worst Broker-Dealers: Q1 Earnings, 2022

Earnings season for the broker-dealer community kicked off April 13, with JPMorgan reporting a sizable year-over-year decline in its financial results that missed financial analysts' estimates. "We remain optimistic on the economy, at least for the short term — consumer and business balance sheets as well as consumer spending remain at healthy levels — but see significant geopolitical and economic challenges ahead," JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned after the bank posted its first-quarter results. As of April 22, 79% of companies in the S&P 500 reporting first-quarter earnings topped analysts' expectations. While this overall percentage is above the five-year average, the magnitude of the average earnings suprise is below it, according to FactSet Research.

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Compared with other industries, the financial sector has reported the fourth-largest positive difference between actual earnings and estimated earnings by industry, at 9.8% so far. "Within this sector, Citigroup ($2.02 vs. $1.43), SVB Financial Group ($7.92 vs. $5.60), Signature Bank ($5.30 vs. $4.33), Goldman Sachs ($10.76 vs. $8.90), and Morgan Stanley ($2.06 vs. $1.71) have reported the largest positive EPS surprises," said John Butters, a senior earnings analyst with FactSet. All figures in the slideshow represent year-over-year changes in net income and earnings per share, as well as in the number of financial advisors, revenues or other reported results tied to wealth management or private banking operations. In some cases, the reported data for the first three months of 2022 are adjusted for one-time charges. (Image: Chris Nicholls/ALM)