Shares of Wells Fargo & Company WFC rose nearly 1.3% after its chief financial officer (CFO), Mike Santomassimo, expressed confidence in the company’s net interest income (NII) outlook at the Morgan Stanley U.S. Financials Conference on Tuesday.
Providing an update on the company’s NII outlook, Santomassimo stated that NII will see a “step up” in the second quarter of 2026 and reiterated Wells Fargo’s expectation of generating approximately $50 billion of NII for the full year. Management also noted that the full-year outlook remains largely unchanged despite shifts in the interest-rate environment since the beginning of the year.
The company highlighted that loan growth continues to perform well and could be modestly better than previously anticipated through the remainder of the year. Management also noted favorable deposit trends, driven by growth in interest-bearing deposits and stable noninterest-bearing deposit balances.
The outlook reflects continued momentum from the first quarter of 2026, when NII increased 5.2% year over year to $12.09 billion. As such, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter NII is pegged at $12.36 billion, suggesting a 5.6% increase from the prior-year quarter.
How Are Other Firms' Likely to Fare in Terms of NII?
Two of the other financial firms with visible NII momentum are PNC Financial Services PNC and Fifth Third Bancorp FITB.
PNC Financial expects continued benefits from fixed-rate asset repricing and loan growth to support spread income in 2026. Stabilizing funding costs, along with strong loan growth, are likely to further support NII in the upcoming period. Management anticipates NII to rise nearly 3% sequentially in the second quarter of 2026. For 2026, PNC Financial expects NII to increase nearly 14.5% year over year, reflecting steady underlying momentum.
Fifth Third Bancorp expects NII to be in the range of $2.20–$2.25 billion in the second quarter of 2026 compared with $1.94 billion in the first quarter of 2026, supported by higher earning assets, lower funding costs and disciplined balance sheet management. The upside also reflects benefits from the Comerica acquisition and an expanding earning asset base. For 2026, adjusted NII is projected to be in the range of $8.7–$8.8 billion compared with $6 billion reported in 2025.
WFC’s Price Performance & Zacks Rank
Shares of Wells Fargo have gained 9.5% in the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 26.9%.
Wells Fargo currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).