Bank Stocks: BAC, WFC, GS and MS by the Numbers

Michael Whitman · Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020 · YouTube creator, 137K subscribers · Published 2026-11-02

Bank stocks are shares in companies that take deposits, lend, trade or advise, and the four big US names on this page are Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS). Your quote screen gives you today’s price. What it leaves out is what these four have actually done when the Fed changed direction and on the mornings they reported, so that is what we measured.

The four banks at a glance

Prices are the October 30, 2026 close. Earnings, book value and dividends come from each bank’s most recent 10-Q on SEC EDGAR. Goldman and Morgan Stanley had not filed their September-quarter 10-Q by November 2, so their earnings and book value run to June 30, and their dividends are the ones declared with their October results.

Closing prices used: BAC $50.01, WFC $83.40, GS $894.55, MS $184.30. In 2026 to October 30, BAC fell 9.1% and WFC fell 10.5%, while GS rose 1.8%, MS rose 3.8% and the S&P 500 rose 10.7%.

How it works

Two kinds of bank sit behind these tickers. Bank of America and Wells Fargo earn most of their money the old way: they pay depositors less than they charge borrowers and keep the gap, plus card and account fees. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley started as investment banks and still earn most of theirs from trading, advising on deals and managing money.

Rates touch both, in different ways. For a lender, a higher policy rate can widen the gap between what it earns on loans and what it pays on deposits, but it also lowers the value of the bonds it already holds and can raise loan losses if borrowers struggle. For a trading and advisory firm, rates matter mostly through deal volume and market activity. That mix is one reason the four stocks did not react the same way after every Fed turn below.

Bank results come early in the season. All four report in the middle of January, April, July and October, usually before the market opens, so the first trading session after the filing absorbs the news.

How to read P/E, book value and yield for a bank

Price-to-book does more work for a bank than for most companies. A bank’s assets are mostly loans and securities carried near their value, so book value per share is a fair first sketch of what the shareholders own. Our price-to-book page explains the ratio itself. A bank that earns a high return on that equity tends to trade further above book, which is the gap you see between the two investment banks at 2.38x and 2.72x and the two lenders at 1.27x and 1.58x.

P/E needs a second look. Bank earnings swing with loan-loss provisions, legal charges and trading income, so a single strong or weak quarter moves the trailing P/E ratio more than it would for a steady business. We use the last four quarters of diluted earnings per share, not one quarter times four.

Yield is a moving target. Large US banks usually set their dividend after the Fed’s yearly stress test, so the declared amount can change in the third quarter. Bank of America’s quarterly dividend went from $0.28 to $0.32 in the September 2026 quarter. Goldman now declares $5.00, up from $4.50, and Morgan Stanley $1.15, up from $1.00. Our dividend yield page covers the general arithmetic.

A worked example: Bank of America’s numbers, step by step

Every input below is in Bank of America’s 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, filed October 30.

1. Earnings for the last 12 months. Diluted EPS was $3.23 for the first nine months of 2026, $3.81 for all of 2025 and $2.84 for the first nine months of 2025. Trailing EPS = $3.23 + $3.81 − $2.84 = $4.20.
2. P/E. $50.01 ÷ $4.20 = 11.9.
3. Book value for common shareholders. Total shareholders’ equity was $296.749 billion. The common lines (common stock with paid-in capital $8.210 billion, retained earnings $278.813 billion, other comprehensive loss −$15.270 billion) add to $271.753 billion, which leaves $24.996 billion of preferred stock. Common equity of $271.753 billion ÷ 6,922,695,323 shares = $39.26 a share.
4. Price-to-book. $50.01 ÷ $39.26 = 1.27.
5. Yield. $0.32 declared for the quarter × 4 = $1.28 a year. $1.28 ÷ $50.01 = 2.56%.

The same steps give every row in the table. The yield matches the 2.56% Yahoo Finance showed on November 2.

The original data

Fed cycle starts. From the Federal Reserve’s own target-rate tables we took every change that reversed the direction of the previous one. Since 1994 that gives 13 first moves: 7 hikes and 6 cuts. For each, a window starts at the last close before the FOMC announcement, so the announcement-day move is included, and ends at the first close on or after the same date 1, 3, 6 or 12 months later. Returns are price only, from Yahoo Finance daily closes. GS was listed from May 1999, so it has fewer cycles. The 1998 mergers mean the BAC and WFC histories before that year belong to NationsBank and Norwest, the companies that took those names, and MS history before 1997 belongs to Dean Witter, Discover.

The one-month returns after each first move:

Medians across cycles, with how many were up:

The newest hike, September 16, 2026, has only its first month so far, so it sits in the one-month rows only.

How unusual is 6 falls in 7? Across every one-month window since February 1994, BAC was lower 43.8% of the time. If each hike month were an ordinary month, 6 or more falls in 7 would turn up about 3.1% of the time. The same check gives 3.0% for WFC and 2.6% for MS. That is a short history, the three banks mostly fell on the same occasions, and the test was run after the pattern was seen, so it describes what happened rather than proving a rule.

Earnings days. We pulled every 8-K that each bank filed under Item 2.02, results of operations, from September 2004 to October 2026: 94 for BAC and WFC, 92 for GS and MS. The reaction day is the filing date when the SEC accepted it before 4 p.m. New York time, otherwise the next session. Almost all of them landed before the open: 348 of the 372. In a few quarters a bank filed a second Item 2.02 8-K within weeks, such as an early update or a revision, and each one counts as its own day.

The median earnings-day move was 2.04% for BAC against 0.96% on other days, 2.52% against 0.87% for WFC, 1.91% against 0.98% for GS and 2.31% against 1.07% for MS. Direction split differently. Wells Fargo closed higher on only 33 of its 94 earnings days, against 50.4% of other days. Morgan Stanley closed higher on 61 of 92, against 50.7%. Bank of America (43 of 94) and Goldman (41 of 92) were close to a coin toss. The biggest single moves came in the 2008 crisis: WFC up 32.8% on July 16, 2008, and BAC down 26.2% on October 7, 2008. On the October 2026 reports, all four closed lower: BAC −4.8%, WFC −3.1%, MS −2.7% and GS −0.2%.

Download the data: Fed cycle starts with 1, 3, 6 and 12-month returns, and every earnings day with its filing time. You may reuse both with a credit and a link back, under the site license.

When it fails

The first move is not the whole cycle. After the September 18, 2007 cut, BAC was 45.1% lower a year later, GS 39.0% lower and MS 66.5% lower, because the financial crisis mattered far more than the Fed’s first step. After the March 16, 2022 hike, BAC was 31.3% lower a year on, through a rate surge and the spring 2023 regional bank failures. A first move tells you the direction of policy, not what the economy does next.

Thirteen events, not thousands. The four banks are exposed to the same economy, so one bad month for the sector shows up four times in the table. The 1997 cycle was a single hike. Treat each row as a dated story and the medians as a summary, not as odds.

Cheap on book can stay cheap. A low price-to-book can reflect real doubts about loan quality or earnings power. A bank below book value is not automatically a bargain.

Our ratios age. The table uses one closing price and the latest 10-Q. A new filing or a big price move changes all three ratios, which is why each row carries its date.

Questions people ask

Do bank stocks go up when interest rates rise?

Not reliably in the short run. In the month after the Fed’s first hike of a cycle, BAC, WFC and MS each fell in 6 of 7 cycles since 1994. Twelve months later the picture was mixed: MS was higher in 5 of 6, WFC in 3 of 6.

What price-to-book is normal for a bank?

There is no fixed number. On the latest filings the two lenders sat at 1.27x and 1.58x and the two investment banks at 2.38x and 2.72x. Compare a bank with its own history and close peers.

Why does Goldman Sachs trade at a higher price-to-book than Bank of America?

The market is paying for a different business and different returns on equity. Goldman earns more from trading and advisory work and is valued accordingly, while Bank of America’s value rests more on its loans and deposits.

When do these banks report earnings?

In the middle of January, April, July and October. Their most recent reports came on October 13 (WFC and GS) and October 14, 2026 (BAC and MS).

Related

Start with price-to-book, the ratio most bank analysis begins with, then P/E ratio for the earnings side. Goldman’s business is covered on Goldman Sachs, and the advisory model behind both GS and MS on investment bank. If you hold bank shares through a fund, sector funds explains what that concentration means, and interest rate covers the policy rate that drives so much of this page.

This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.