It's been interesting to see the comments on Seeking Alpha made in reaction to the early round of 1Q17 results from U.S. banks. We've certainly got a market with forecasts of recession mingling with optimism that the Trump trade will re-emerge once the great man has done whatever he has to do in the meantime.
One theme we've seen, exemplified by JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), is buoyant capital markets results that have compensated for soft domestic mortgage banking fee revenue. And along the same lines, Citigroup (NYSE:C) achieved a similar offset with growth in its emerging market divisions. This reminds investors that capital markets divisions are not always a source of disappointment and revenue diversity has value. Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) showed the mortgage weakness too, but did post steady growth in net interest income of over 5%, confirming an important sector theme, NII growth, is underway.
