Analyst Note
| Eric Compton, CFA |Wide-moat Wells Fargo reported disappointing first-quarter earnings from our perspective. While the bank reported EPS of $0.88, beating the FactSet consensus of $0.81 and our own estimate of $0.79, the beat was solely driven by declines within the allowance for loan losses. Removing the effect of this, which is essentially a non-core item, and EPS would have been $0.67. Top-line revenue came in at $17.6 billion compared with consensus of $17.8 billion and our own estimate of $18.1 billion.