Wells Fargo's funny numbers

Excerpt:

• The volatility in the mortgage servicing fee is impossible to explain. In the past five quarters this fee has moved around as follows: $525 million, negative $40 million, $843 million, $753 million, and $1.9 billion. Mortgage rates in these five quarters have been as follows: 6.31%, 5.87%, 5.06%, 5.03%, and 5.15%. These rates would argue for a constant decline in the value of mortgage servicing until the third quarter this year.
• This is not what is depicted in the Wells Fargo numbers. The reason is that Wells hedges its servicing portfolio. These hedges are very large. For example in the second quarter, the bank lost $1.3 billion on its MSR hedges. In the third quarter, it made $3.6 billion on these hedges. The swing from quarter to quarter was $4.9 billion. The earnings per share impact was $0.68 per share. This is more money than the bank earned, overall, including the hedge profit, in the third quarter.
• Despite the fact that this is the most compelling earnings event in each quarter, the bank never spends much more than 5 seconds discussing it. It is an unsustainable profit but MSR hedges keep coming through for the company when it needs to bolster earnings.
• The remaining businesses of the bank were very mixed in the quarter. Most disturbing is that loan losses seem to be accelerating on the negative side.

Voltron says: I thought the point of hedges was to decrease earnings volatility, not attempt to manufacture earnings.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/10/23/79401/the-perils-of-instant-analysis/