Stocks End Quarter on a High Note
The Dow industrials rose 2.1% in the third quarter and are up 5.1% this year. Above, traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange this past week. ENLARGE
The Dow industrials rose 2.1% in the third quarter and are up 5.1% this year. Above, traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange this past week. Photo: brendan mcdermid/Reuters
By
Aaron Kuriloff in New York and
Riva Gold in London
Sept. 30, 2016 7:09 p.m. ET
U.S. stocks wrapped up their best quarter of the year with help from the beleaguered banking sector.
Financial firms had been battered for much of 2016 by volatile markets, sluggish growth and central banks that are putting pressure on profits by keeping interest rates near or below zero. But their shares have started to recover in recent months, as investors regained confidence in the economy and embraced riskier assets.
The gains helped lift the S&P 500 by 3.3% in the third quarter and have eased concerns that advances in stocks aren’t sustainable if the financial sector isn’t along for the ride. Yet there are also possible rough spots ahead, including uncertainty over when the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates, concerns about Deutsche Bank AG ’s thin capital cushion, and unease about the fallout from a scandal over sales tactics that has engulfed Wells Fargo & Co. And sluggish earnings remain a concern.
“If the action in financials today restored a little bit of confidence, that goes a long way,” said Jim Tierney, chief investment officer of concentrated U.S. growth at AllianceBernstein Holding LP. “We need to start seeing actual earnings, as well as earnings estimates, start moving up. If that happens, there’s no reason this market can’t get a higher valuation than what it has now.”
Shares in Germany’s largest bank by assets started off Friday with a 9% plunge to their lowest level in decades, then rebounded following a report that a regulatory settlement with the U.S. might not be as costly as expected. The stock closed up 6.4% in its biggest one-day percentage jump since April.
The rally helped lift stocks broadly. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 164.70 points, or 0.9%, to 18308.15, leaving the blue-chip index up 2.1% on the quarter and up 5.1% this year.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index each climbed 0.8%. The tech-oriented Nasdaq ended the quarter up 9.7%, its best quarter since 2013.
A day earlier, financial stocks had led a broad selloff amid reports some hedge-fund clients were backing away from Deutsche Bank to pare risks.
The swings came at the end of a quarter that was mostly calm in the U.S. The S&P 500 rebounded from the turbulence created by the U.K. vote in June to leave the European Union to reach its first record in more than a year in early July. The index went two months without a move of 1% or more until early September, when investors sold stocks and bonds amid fears that central banks might pull back from their easy-money policies sooner than expected.
But the Fed held off on raising interest rates and the Bank of Japan revamped its policy in another bid to spur economic growth, lifting stocks and bonds.
Some investors said this quarter’s gains in financial shares, as well as a rally in technology stocks, were an encouraging sign for the durability of a rally that has the S&P 500 up 6.1% this year. Investors have been shifting to those riskier sectors and out of shares of utilities and telecommunications companies that tend to do well when investors are nervous about the future. The S&P 500’s utilities sector fell 6.7% over the quarter, paring 2016 gains to 13%.
With the Fed signaling it wants to raise rates by the end of the year, financial shares could be set for an additional boost. But the U.S. election could prompt additional bouts of volatility, and corporate earnings have been weak. Earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to fall 2.1% from a year earlier in the third quarter, according to analysts polled by FactSet. That would mark the sixth consecutive quarter of falling earnings for the index, the first such streak since FactSet began tracking the data in 2008.
“In order to substantiate current valuations from here we need to see growth,” said Eric Wiegand, senior portfolio manager for U.S. Bank’s Private Client Reserve. “We do think that in the second half of the year we will see some earnings improvement.”
The KBW Nasdaq Bank Index climbed 9.2% over the past three months, its best quarter in nearly three years. Since June 30, Bank of America Corp. is up 18%. But in a sign of the pressure on the sector, the index remains down 3.1% for the year, and Bank of America is still off 7% in 2016. Wells Fargo fell 6.4% in the quarter, extending its 2016 declines to 19%.
Steps that central banks are taking around the world to spur their economies are putting pressure on banks and other financial players like insurance companies and pension funds. Banks typically like a wider gap between long- and short-term bond yields, as their net interest margins depend on the difference between the rates at which they borrow and those at which they lend.
The Bank of Japan, after wrestling with the issue, tweaked its policy this month with an aim of keeping long-term interest rates higher than short-term ones.
Japan’s Topix Banks Index rose 12% in the third quarter but is down more than 30% this year. The Euro Stoxx Banks Index had its best three months since the first quarter of 2015 with an 11% gain, but is down 28% year to date.
“This rate environment just isn’t great for their profits,” said Hank Smith, chief investment officer at Haverford Trust. “Whenever there’s an expectation for a rate increase, banks do well.”
Some investors said the Deutsche Bank developments were a reminder that the financial crisis still haunts the banking sector. The Wall Street Journal reported in September that the Justice Department proposed the lender pay $14 billion to reach a settlement related to its dealings in mortgage securities ahead of the financial crisis.
The size of the potential fine sparked concerns the bank might need to raise more capital. AFP reported Friday that the settlement may be closer to $5.4 billion.
Its shares have fallen 49% this year, with declines deepening in recent weeks. Deutsche Bank has said it doesn’t expect to pay anything near $14 billion, and CEO John Cryan defended the bank’s soundness Friday in a letter to employees.
Some investors said Friday that they agreed the worries had gone too far and said new regulations and tougher capital requirements have rendered banks more resilient in the wake of the crisis.
“The odds of a large hole in bank balance sheets are pretty minimal at this point,” said David Lefkowitz, senior equity strategist at UBS Wealth Management Americas. “It’s possible that individual banks may need to raise more capital, but this is not necessarily a systemic problem with the global banking system.”
Write to Aaron Kuriloff at aaron.kuriloff@wsj.com and Riva Gold at riva.gold@wsj.com