J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) delivered quarterly results last Friday with the former reporting its first loss under CEO Jamie Dimon.
Dow component J.P. Morgan may be a special case because of a whopping pretax legal charge of $9.2 billion, but it still looks like this could be a volatile earnings season for the financial services sector, the second-largest sector weight in the S&P 500 behind technology. That volatility could be the result of hyperbole from the media and traders.
“Granted, coverage should be somewhat muted. Economically, we’ve steered into a nasty patch of weather. The banks are obviously sensitive to that. But if you look hard, you can see that the media – and, by extension, traders – are overreacting by a length,” wrote Marek Fuchs for The Exchange on Yahoo Finance.
Exaggeration aside, the week ahead is a critical one for financial service s ETFs, including the group’s biggest member: The Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLF). It has been a good year for XLF, for the most part. The fund ranks as the third-best sector SPDR, trailing only its discretionary and industrial equivalents. Additionally, XLF has been one of the most prolific asset gatherers among sector ETFs, raking in $2.6 billion in new investments this year. [XLF Races for Inflows Bronze Medal]