Wells Fargo Projects Big Surprise Earnings

Wells Fargo (Ticker: WFC) shocked Wall Street by projecting a whopping $3 billion profit for the first quarter of this year.

Photo by sburke2478, courtesy of flickr

The full earnings report is scheduled for April 22, but news of the projected profits sent bank stocks soaring.

Shares of Wells Fargo are trading over 27 percent higher.

Bank of America (Ticker: BAC) shares rose 31 percent while shares of Citigroup (Ticker: C) had a more moderate gain (relatively speaking) of 10 percent. 

Wells Fargo attributed some of the positive results to an increase in mortgage applications and its acquisition of Wachovia earlier this year.

According to the Associated Press, Wells Fargo has received $25 billion in bailout money from the government. I think that helped, too, don’t you?

Turning a profit is definitely good news for big banks, but this is a government assisted profit (to put it mildly!). I take it as a sign that the government’s measures are working, but I would like to see the banks get back to working on their own.