Earnings: Goldman Sachs profit slips, BNY Mellon posts Q4 beat, PNC and Truist beat EPS estimates

Yahoo Finance's Brian Cheung discusses the earnings reports for Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, PNC, and Truist.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Goldman coming out with revenue that beat estimates. And, of course, a lot of attention being paid to its fixed income currency and commodities trading revenue, which missed at some of its competitors. Doesn't look like it missed for Goldman. Our Brian Cheung is on the case with the banks as usual. Brian, what can you tell us?

BRIAN CHEUNG: Certainly a busy morning. And it wasn't just Goldman Sachs, it was a number of other firms that reported as well. But let's unpack the results starting off with the fourth quarter earnings results for Goldman Sachs. That big bank in New York. Of course, $12.6 billion as you mentioned on the top line beating the street's estimates, but falling short on the bottom line in terms of diluted adjusted earnings per share of $10.81. That's almost a dollar of miss compared to the Street's estimates.

And the big reason was because of the higher pay for workers, which took a bigger bite out of the bottom line. Comps and benefits up 31% year over year. iBanking clocking in at $3.8 billion in revenue. But fixed income currencies and commodities, which is a big fixture of the banks that reported last week, also in focus here at Goldman Sachs. Really not as bad as the year over year drops seen by the other banks.

But take a look at equities at $2.12 billion. That was down 11% year over year. Overall the bank is saying that they were challenging market making conditions, maybe the reason why you're seeing Goldman Sachs selling off in the early market trading.

Now I want to highlight some other banks as well, the more consumer facing banks. Starting off with Truist in Charlotte, North Carolina. Again, this is the formerly known as BBT and SunTrust combination. They reported top line earnings basically in line with expectations. They did beat on the bottom line. Net interest income taking a tick down from where it was around this time of year. But non-interest income, i.e. fees, were up. That's a trend that we saw from Wells Fargo as reported last week as well. And by the way, personnel expenses at Truist were a smidge down.

Also taking a look at PNC over in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That company beating estimates on the bottom line. They were pretty basically close to expectations on the top line. But personnel expenses, again, this is a big thing for bank earnings. Up 34% year over year. Also remember that this bank closed their acquisition of BBVA's US business in the late summer of last year. So that's a big reason why maybe they have a noisy quarter. Shares of PNC are up pre market.

And then lastly, I promise this is the last one here. Bank of New York Mellon. This is a custody bank. Not necessarily a consumer facing bank, but worth mentioning because it is after all a global systemically important bank beating on the top and basically in line on the bottom. Total assets under management increasing by 10% in the quarter.

That's a lot. And thematically very similar to the growth that we saw in another big asset manager, that was BlackRock last week. And staff pay over at BNY Mellon increasing by about 5% year over year. And shares of BNY taking just a little bit up in pre-market trading, guys.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah. And banks have been increasingly popular with fund managers, which is something we're going to talk about a little bit later in the show. The results of the latest bank of America Fund manager survey. Thanks so much, Brian.