Many Big Banks Reported Earnings Recently — Is It a Good Time To Buy Their

America’s big banks are often a telling indicator for the health of the overall economy. As such, when the big banks report earnings, everyone on Wall Street listens, and the results can often move markets.

According to the most recent results from the country’s biggest banks, business is booming. Per The New York Times, big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs had “bumper profits” in their earnings reports.

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But do these solid earnings make it a good time to buy big bank stocks, or is the news already factored into their share prices? Read on to learn more.

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Overall, big bank earnings were up significantly in the fourth quarter of 2024, with most of the name-brand banks reporting stellar results. Here are some of the highlights, as cited by CNN:

• JPMorgan Chase (JPM) reported net income of $14 billion in the fourth quarter alone, pushing its full-year annual profit to a staggering $58.5 billion.

• Citigroup (C) flipped a $1.8 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2023 into a $2.9 billion profit in the same quarter of 2024.

• Wells Fargo (WFC) surprised Wall Street with a 50% jump in profits, from $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023 to $5.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024.

• Goldman Sachs (GS) more than doubled its fourth quarter 2023 profits, with the investment bank reporting $4.11 billion in net earnings in the fourth quarter of 2024

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According to the Risk Management Association, a division of ProSight, corporate deal-making was part of what helped propel bank earnings in their most recent quarter. Investment banking grew in the fourth quarter, with corporate bond issuances and general merger and acquisition activity pushing up revenue 25% year over year for all of the major banks.

This jump in investment banking came just at the right time for big banks, as the fuel for their revenue growth the prior two years, interest income, began to slow. On the back of the Federal Reserve jacking up interest rates to their highest level in some 40 years, banks raked it in in terms of interest income in 2023 and 2024. However, with the Fed embarking on its campaign of cutting rates in 2024, that engine started to slow.

As of Feb. 5, 2025, all of the major banks have posted solid gains on a year-to-date basis. Here’s a comparison of how they’ve done.

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