A worthwhile exercise in relation to banks’ Q1 results. And probably by no means complete:

• Goldman Sachs – December orphan month hiding a pre-tax loss of $1.3bn (net $780m).

• Bank of America -  $2.2bn pre-tax fair value adjustment on Merrill structured notes.

• Citigroup – $631m pretax resulting from FAs 115 changes, $30m on CVAs, $541m from shift to accrual accounting.

• Wells Fargo – $824m from FAs 160.

• JP Morgan – N/A.

Estimated accounting gains: $5.53bn.

Total net earnings: (BOA$4.2bn, GS $1.81bn, JPM$2.1bn, WF$3bn, C$1.6bn) = $12.71bn And that’s not including one-off gains like Citi’s $2.5bn gains on a “derivative position” linked to its own CDS and banks’ amazing fixed income performances.

Little wonder then, that the markets have changed so rapidly. Change in broker quotes for 5-year financial CDS below (HT Paul Davies).

This entry was posted by Tracy Alloway on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 14:30 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with accounting, Banks. Edit this entry.