New York, Feb 11, 2026, 11:28 (ET) — Regular session
- Wells Fargo shares fall about 1.7% in late-morning trading, extending a two-day slide
- CFO Mike Santomassimo flagged loan growth led by cards and autos at a UBS conference on Tuesday
- Traders turn to Friday’s U.S. inflation data as the next catalyst for rate expectations
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) shares were down 1.7% at $90.34 in late-morning trading on Wednesday, with about 3.7 million shares traded.
The drop follows comments from Chief Financial Officer Mike Santomassimo, who told a UBS conference the bank expects loans to grow this year with credit cards and auto lending doing much of the work. “On the card side, we’re seeing good growth there,” he said, adding the bank plans more new card products aimed at wealth-management clients. “Credit performance is still very good,” Santomassimo told the conference. (Reuters)
The backdrop got noisier on Wednesday after a stronger-than-expected January jobs report pushed traders to dial back expectations for near-term Federal Reserve rate cuts. Jordan Rizzuto, chief investment officer at GammaRoad Capital Partners, said equities were taking it well because the employment picture looked “stronger than what’s expected.” (Reuters)
Financial stocks were broadly weaker even as the wider market held steadier. The Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF was down about 1.3%, while Citigroup fell about 2.2%, Bank of America slipped roughly 1.2% and JPMorgan Chase eased about 0.8%; the S&P 500’s SPY ETF was little changed.
For Wells Fargo, the rate story cuts both ways. Higher rates can lift what a bank earns on loans, but they can also keep borrowing costs high and slow activity in rate-sensitive areas such as mortgages.
Investors are also parsing what “growth” means in practice. Credit cards and auto loans can throw off strong revenue, but they are the parts of the book that tend to show stress first when the economy cools.
But the downside case is straightforward: if delinquencies rise or charge-offs climb, the earnings lift from faster loan growth can vanish quickly. A longer stretch of higher rates can also keep mortgage demand muted, even if management says the slide is moderating.
Wells Fargo has been trying to rebuild after years of regulatory constraints. The Federal Reserve in June 2025 lifted a $1.95 trillion asset cap imposed in 2018, removing a limit on balance-sheet size that had boxed in growth. (Reuters)
Next up is Friday’s U.S. consumer price index report for January, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, which could reset the market’s view of the Fed’s next move and ripple through bank shares. (Bls)
