Effectively, the CME is lowering the cost to trade crude oil, gold, silver, copper, and a few other commodities. So far this has had no impact on prices of the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE: GLD), United States Oil Fund (NYSE: USO), iShares Silver Trust (NYSE: SLV), nor in the iPath DJ-UBS Copper TR Sub-Index ETN (NYSE: JJC).

In the past, margin costs were raised on traders as an effort to curb runaway trading to the upside by making it more expensive for traders and speculators to trade energy and metals.  In short, driving up the cost of poker creates fewer gamblers. So what happens when they make it cheaper to trade?

The full details are here.

JON C. OGG

The prince is a very long-term investor in Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C).  He is also apparently its largest holder.  This evening he noted that he expects Citi to begin returning capital to shareholders soon.  The stress tests should be finished in March and the prince said is pushing for a dividend hike.  He even noted that he held a conversation with Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit late last week and his opinion is that the new Citi is doing very well. 

Citi is one of the ‘too big to fail’ banks and it has paid only a one-cent dividend since it has gotten out from the TARP.  After a 1-for-10 reverse stock split, many investors have moved on.  The adjusted dividend back in 2007 was $5.40, but it is going to be quite some time before investors expect that to remain.

Thomson Reuters is predicting that Citi will have normalized earnings at $4.04 EPS in 2012 and $4.70 EPS in 2013.  If the bank is ever allowed to return 40% of its normalized earnings, Citi could pay out $1.60 or so per share in annualized dividends.  That is a big if, but at $33.30 it would generate a dividend yield of 4.8%.

Again, that IF is a really big ‘if’ based on the regulatory climate of today.  The one bank that is expected to be among the very first to raise the common stock dividend is J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM).  Its $0.25 per quarter dividend used to be $0.38 per quarter before the bubble burst.  We also expect a higher dividend coming down the pipe from Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) as its $0.12 per quarter dividend compares to $0.34 before the bubble burst.

JON C. OGG

Keating has been a Director of the Group Finance.  The strategy change is to effect a split in the Irish and U.K. Retail Division into separate units for each country.  Each unit will be led by separate chiefs and both chiefs will be members of the group executive committee.  U.K. Retail will be led by Des Crowley; Ireland Retail will be led by Liam McLoughlin. The new structure’s implementation date is expected to be in mid-March of 2012.

Shares at the local level in Dublin were up 5.2% on last look, but the ADRs in New York were up 3.1% at $6.46 against an adjusted 52-week range of $3.99 to $27.00 if you account for the reverse split.

Our take: This could lead to more of a break-up or allow asset sales more easily down the road.  It certainly is not growth ambitions, but whatever adds to survival chances right now is what matters the most.

JON C. OGG

FULL PRESS RELEASE FROM THE P.R. DEPT. BELOW:

The Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland (the “Bank of Ireland”)
1 February 2012

Bank of Ireland Announces Board and Executive Management Changes

Bank of Ireland has today announced changes to its Group Structure and to its Senior Executive Team.

Board Change
Andrew Keating has been appointed an Executive Director of Bank of Ireland and Group Chief Financial Officer with immediate effect, replacing John O’Donovan who has retired from that role.  Andrew was formerly Director of Group Finance where he spearheaded a major transformation of the Finance Division in the Bank of Ireland Group.  He joined Bank of Ireland in 2004, prior to which he held a number of senior finance roles with Ulster Bank having qualified as a chartered accountant with Arthur Andersen.

Andrew is also a Director of Bristol & West plc, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of Ireland.

There are no details requiring disclosure for Andrew under paragraph 6.6.7 (2) to (6) of the Listing Rules.

Changes to Group Structure
Having embedded considerable benefits from the sharing of best practice and synergies in areas such as segment/product propositions, operational management and infrastructure the Group is enhancing the visibility of and focus on two of our most significant businesses.  Accordingly, for strategic management purposes we will split our Retail (Ireland & UK) Division into Retail Ireland Division and Retail UK Division.  Each will be headed up by separate Divisional Chief Executives who will be members of the Group Executive Committee.

Changes to Group Executive Committee
Des Crowley will be Chief Executive of the Retail UK Division where he will be responsible for the various UK based retail businesses within our subsidiary Bank of Ireland (UK) plc and outside the subsidiary.  Prior to this he held a number of positions on the Group Executive Committee since 2000, including Chief Executive, Retail Financial Services and Chief Executive UK Financial Services, having joined Bank of Ireland from Arthur Andersen.  As we work through the revised structure we will need FSA regulatory approval for key changes/appointments which we make during the course of transition.

Liam McLoughlin will be Chief Executive of the Retail Ireland Division, where he will be responsible for the Branch Network, Business Banking, Mortgages, Personal Lending, Debit & Credit Cards and Wealth Management.  Liam has been Head of Group Manufacturing since July 2009.  Prior to that he held a number of senior positions in the Capital Markets and Finance Divisions.  He joined Bank of Ireland in 2004 from Ulster Bank Group prior to which he had been Financial Controller with the National Treasury Management Agency.  Qualifying with PricewaterhouseCoopers he is a fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland.

Senan Murphy joins Bank of Ireland to become Head of Group Manufacturing.  Senan , a chartered accountant , was most recently Chief Operating Officer and Finance Director at Ulster Bank whom he joined in 2008 having previously been Finance Director at Airtricity. Before that Senan worked in a number of senior roles in General Electric in both the US and Ireland.  In his role with Bank of Ireland, Senan will be responsible for managing and enhancing the Group’s infrastructure (including its technology), customer service and contact centres, collection activities, its customer payment activities and cash distribution.  Senan will be a member of the Group Executive Committee.

Mr Murphy will join the Bank shortly and will transition into his new role for the implementation date of the new Group Structure at which time Mr Crowley and Mr McLoughlin will formally take on their new roles.

The new Group Structure will have an implementation date of mid March 2012.

1 February 2012
 
Enquiries:
Dan Loughrey, Head of Group Corporate Communications Ph: 00-353-623-4770
Helen Nolan, Group Secretary Ph: 00-353-76-623-4710

American Express beat its estimates for the fourth quarter but shares went down from rising loan loss provisions and as its revenues were short of plan.  AmEx managed to grow expenses at a slower rate to help its beat earnings expectations.  The company increased its provision for loan losses with some $409 million.  AmEx serves mostly higher credit customers.

Capital One serves the masses with its credit cards and few branches, but it also managed to have soft earnings as non-interest expenses and its sales and marketing costs rose.  Earnings were down to $0.88 per share, down from $1.52 in the fourth quarter a year earlier and under the consensus analyst estimate of $1.56. Capital One’s non-interest expenses rose to $2.62 billion from $2.09 billion in the year earlier.  Expenses of $2.0 to $2.5 billion are also apparently higher than what many analysts were expecting. It is important to keep in mind that Capital One has two major acquisitions which should close during the first half of this year.

AmEx ended up only losing a couple percent on Friday and its shares are up only marginally with a gain of $0.04 to $50.08; Capital One shares are up $0.16 at $46.19 after closing down about 5.6% on Friday.

JON C. OGG

Bank of America is trading at a healthy discount to its book value.  The stated book value is $20.09 per share and the tangible book value is now up to $12.95.  Even with a $6.80 pric after a 20% gain in two weeks, this is a steep discount.  The Warren Buffett investment from Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) looks like it may pay off now.

Bank of America was the last of the money-center outfits to report and shares are indicated up about 5.5% at $7.17 in active pre-market trading.  The move is also good for other banks which have reported:

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) is indicated up 0.6% at $30.42 and it trades above book value.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is up 1.2% at $37.00 and Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) is up 1.6% at $29.50.

JON C. OGG

Fourth quarter net revenues were $6.05 billion, and net earnings were $1.01 billion or $1.84 EPS. The annualized return on equity was 5.8% for the fourth quarter.  Management talked about the year being dominated by global macro-economic concerns, impacted risk tolerance of clients, and other challenges.  Thomson Reuters had estimates of $1.24 EPS and 6.54 billion in revenues.

Here were the quarterly highlights by unit:

• Net revenues in Investment Banking were $857 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, 43% lower than the fourth quarter of 2010 and 10% higher than the third quarter of 2011.
• Net revenues in Institutional Client Services were $3.06 billion for the fourth quarter of 2011, 16% lower than the fourth quarter of 2010 and 25% lower than the third quarter of 2011.
• Net revenues in Investing & Lending were $872 million for the fourth quarter of 2011.
• Net revenues in Investment Management were $1.26 billion for the fourth quarter of 2011, 16% lower than the fourth quarter of 2010 and 3% higher than the third quarter of 2011.
• Compensation and benefits expenses (salaries, discretionary compensation, amortization of equity awards and other items such as benefits) were $12.22 billion for 2011, down 21% from 2010. The ratio of compensation and benefits to net revenues for 2011 was 42.4%. Total staff count was down 7% compared with the end of 2010.

The good news about this quarter is that the investment bank made money at a time when estimates were coming down extremely fast.  The bad news is that the quarter was far from an attractive one compared to normalized quarters.

Book value was $130.31 per common share and its tangible book value was $119.72 per common share. Unfortunately, book value in banking today is a ceiling rather than a floor.  Shares are indicated up 1.3% at $98.99 against a 52-week range of $84.27 to $171.49.

JON C. OGG

Bank of New York missed on the top and bottom line with earnings of $0.42 EPS versus $0.52 estimates; revenues were down over 5% to $3.54 billion versus the $3.74 billion estimate.  Assets under custody and administration rose 3% to $25.8 trillion; Assets under management were up 8% to $1.26 trillion.  The company talked up general uncertainty in the financial markets and lower levels of client activity.

State Street reported $0.93 EPS after charges versus $0.94 EPS estimates; revenue rose by 13% to $2.315 billion versus estimates of $2.4 billion.  The company ended with a tier 1 common ratio of 16.9% and it has submitted its 2012 capital plan to the Federal Reserve Bank with plans for dividends and our share repurchases.

Bank of New York is down 3.6% at $20.49 and State Street has not yet started trading and we have not yet started seeing early indications in the early pre-market with about two hours until trading opens in New York.

JON C. OGG

We have compiled basic earnings previews and shown Thomson Reuters estimates from the following: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS); State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT); Bank Of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK); U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB); Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ: NTRS); American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP); Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC); Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS); and Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE: COF).

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) is set to report earnings on Wednesday morning and the earnings estimates have been coming down more than just marginally ahead of the expected earnings report.  It is no longer expected to have the name “Golden Slacks” attached as a nickname right now.  The current target is $1.24 EPS on $6.54 billion in sales, but the earnings targets were above $2.00 EPS recently and the street expected almost $3.00 just about 90 days ago.

State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) is set to report earnings on Wednesday morning and the consensus estimate for the trust and custodial bank is expected to rise about 8% to $0.94 EPS.  Bank Of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK) is set to report earnings on Wednesday morning and the earnings estimates are $0.53 EPS and $3.75 billion in revenues.  We will be waiting to see if any of the charges to trust and custodial customers taking the cash holdings operations to a cost rather than as an interest bearing account will have made a difference.  That seems to have gone away but it may have just been lost in the shuffle.

U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) is expected to report earnings on Wednesday morning.  The estimates are $0.63 EPS on $4.76 billion in sales.  Northern Trust Corporation (NASDAQ: NTRS) is also due Wednesday morning and estimates are $0.68 EPS and $972.3 million.

American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) is due on Thursday after the close and earnings estimates are $0.98 EPS and $7.92 billion in sales.  As with the rest of the lenders and credit cards, we expect to hear continued improvements in credit metrics regarding the customer base.

Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) is due to report on Thursday morning.  The most unpopular of the big ‘too big to fail’ money-center banks in America, has a consensus earnings estimate of $0.23 EPS on $24.08 billion in revenues.  This has been the best DJIA stock so far in 2012 even including the last two trading sessions.  It is a bit more than just interesting that earnings estimates have ratcheted higher over the last ten days when estimates elsewhere have been cut so much in banking.  The huge discount to book value is again likely to be less material than in years passed.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is set to report on Thursday morning as well.  Long gone is worrying about the relative book value and long gone is the comparison to Goldman Sachs.  Estimates are for a loss at -$0.57 EPS and $5.57 billion in revenues.

Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE: COF) is due to report earning on Thursday and this is the credit card bank “for the rest of America.”  The earnings report could be wildly far off of estimates because the bank is in the process of acquisitions which could greatly skew the headline numbers.  A fresh SEC filing showed that monthly data showed a continued improvement in default rates and in late payments in December. The consensus estimate is $1.55 EPS and $4.08 billion in sales.

JON C. OGG

Citigroup reported that earnings fell 11% and its earnings came in at $0.38 EPS versus estimates of $0.49 EPS.  Keep in mind that many bank earnings expectations had been cratering in the weeks prior to the actual news. Still, the figures were short. The “bad bank” asset unit of Citi Holdings managed a narrower loss of -$806 million versus a loss at -$1.02 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010. There is some good news this morning.  That makes two profitable years now for Citi. 

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), now the healthiest of earners in the ‘new bank operating environment,’ managed to show a 20% earnings gain of 20% to $4.11 billion.  The boost was said to be from gains related to mortgage financing, but the translation was $0.73 EPS versus estimates of $0.72 EPS.  The loan loss provision was down again, close to $2 billion from $3 billion a year earlier.

Citigroup shares are indicated down over 4% at $29.45 in pre-market trading.  Citi’s 52-week range is $21.40 to $49.60 and shares were up over 15% year to date.  The bank reported book value of $60.78 and a tangible book value of $49.81.

Wells Fargo was negative at first but shares are now up 0.9% at $29.88 in the pre-market.  Its 52-week range is $22.58 to $34.25 and its stated book value was $24.64. 

JON C. OGG

We will be paying extra attention to the money center banks of Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC); and then there are the “bankless bank holding companies” of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) to consider as rival trading outfits.  Then there is also American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) with much of the same client base as Chase Banks and then the more mainstream Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE: COF) to consider as well. On the trust bank side and fiduciary side, there is Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE: BK) and State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT).

We have added in color on each group as well as shown trading ranges, implied price targets, and the implied discounts to the stated book values.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is the best of the large diversified money center banks to most investors and it still trades at 0.76-times its stated book value.  The stock is at $36.35, the 52-week range is $27.85 to $48.36, and the consensus analyst price target objective is $46.29. Thomson Reuters has estimates of $0.91 EPS and $23.05 billion in revenues for the quarter.  Keep in mind that estimates have ticked lower almost each week during the last quarter.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) was recently listed as being at well under 0.5-times book value, but the stock has been the top performing DJIA stock.  With shares at $6.87, the 52-week range is $4.92 to $15.31. The consensus target is $9.02.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) was recently about 0.52-times stated book value. Shares are trading around $31.27 with a 52-week range of $21.40 to $51.50 and the consensus price target is $41.98.

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) was recently trading at 1.1-times book value, making Warren Buffett’s favorite bank stock the only of the money center banks not at a discount to its stated book value.  That is partly because the new trading rules and regulations are believed to have the least impact on it out of the money center banks.  Shares are trading around $29.62 with a 52-week range of $22.58 to $34.25 and the consensus price target is $32.37.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) trades at about 0.7-times its stated book value and some now expect a loss when it reports earnings.  At $99.76, the 52-week range is $84.27 to $175.34 and the consensus price target is $128.80.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) trades at a steep discount even to Goldman Sachs with a price/book ratio of only about 0.52-times stated book.  Shares trade at $17.10 and the 52-week trading range is $11.58 to $31.04.  The consensus price target is currently about $21.80.

American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) is not at a discount to book value at all at 3.19-times book value because it is classified in such a different manner.  Shares are trading at $48.95, the 52-week range is $41.30 to $53.80, and the consensus price target is $56.63.

Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE: COF) may not be accurate on book because of the acquisitions and changes there.  It is stated as being 0.75-times its stated book value.  Shares trade at $47.71, the 52-week range is $35.94 to $56.26, and the consensus price target is $56.85.

Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE: BK) trades at 0.77-times its stated book value at the custodial and fiduciary bank. Shares are at $21.50, the 52-week range is $17.10 to $32.50, and it has a price target of $25.33.

State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) is at a premium of 1.08-times its stated book value for the custodial bank.  State Street;s stock is at $43.05, its 52-week range is $29.86 to $50.26, and the consensus price target is $47.36.

Price-to-book and price-to-earnings data provided by Finviz.com, consensus price target (mean target) provided by Thomson Reuters.

Many estimates have been trimmed by analysts of late for the banks and financials.  We still expect modest credit metric improvements in most of the big banks and more importantly expect improvements in customer credit metrics to have improved again.  The difference this quarter is that there should be a tick up in loan demand actually being met by the banks, but don’t expect any huge gains there.

Before you get too excited about the discounts to book value, this may still be more of a ceiling rather than a floor.  Cash may have to be paid out in settlements, carrying cash balances yields literally nothing, and many banking operations remain in a state of muted flux.

Lastly, look for this to impact the wild triple-leverage ETF of the Direxion Financial Bull 3X Shares (NYSE: FAS), but watch the tracking error when the markets are not open.

JON C. OGG