The second-quarter earnings season is under way, with three of the "Big Four" banks -- JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup having released their Q2 earnings report.
For InvestorPlace.com and the mainstream media, I covered the latter, and I have some interesting thoughts behind it. Yes, they did beat their EPS estimates by a solid margin, but that was expected -- no brownie points there.
What wasn't expected was the revenue miss...yeah, it barely missed but that wasn't the point. Rather, if the domestic (U.S.) economy was so robust, where is the demand? Among Citigroup's international markets, only the North American market faltered. Moreover, it was corporate lending that tanked sharply.
The economy probably isn't as good as they'd like us to think. Then again, lower revenues may mean things different from reduced lending or trading