Review & Preview: The Banks Are OK, For Now

Oct 17, 2025 20:00:00 -0400 by Alex Eule | #Markets #Review & Preview

What, Me Worry? Investors can rest easy for now. A day after worries about the U.S. banking system threatened to spin out of control, the market took a deep breath.

The SPDR S&P Bank ETF, which tracks the country’s largest bank stocks, rose 1.4% on the day, recovering some of Thursday’s 5.4% decline.

Wall Street analysts defended the banking system in the wake of new warnings from Zions Bancorp. At least one analyst upgraded Zions’ stock on Friday, Barron’s Nate Wolf reports, despite the regional bank’s disclosure of a $50 million charge related to problems at two borrowers.

“We feel like the panic selling provides a great opportunity to buy ZION shares here,” wrote Baird analyst David A. George, who added that the stock’s $1 billion loss in market value didn’t match the bank’s exposure to the bad loans.

Zions’ disclosure set off investors already on alert after JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon suggested that losses tied to bankruptcies in the auto industry could be the first in a batch of credit problems for banks. “When you see one cockroach, there are probably more,” Dimon said earlier this week.

But Bullish investors have plenty of good news to point to when it comes to the financial sector. This week, major U.S. banks, including JPMorgan, reported excellent results, as my colleague Rebecca Ungarino writes:

Third-quarter earnings from the country’s biggest lenders—JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup—and investment banks Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley showed Wall Street is booming, Main Street is humming, and consumers are generally on firm ground.

Helped by Friday’s recovery, major stock indexes finished the week in positive territory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week up 711 points, or 1.6%. The S&P 500 gained 1.7% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.1%.

If bank earnings helped stocks this week, investors have reason to be optimistic. Some 80 S&P 500 companies report results next week. More on that below.

Company

Last

Chg

Chg%

Dow Jones Industrial Average

46,706.58

515.97

1.12%

S&P 500 Index

6,735.13

71.12

1.07%

NASDAQ Composite Index

22,990.54

310.57

1.37%

Market Data as of

The Hot Stock: Kenvue +8.4%
The Biggest Loser: Newmont -7.6%

Best Sector: Consumer Staples +1.3%
Worst Sector: Energy -0.5%

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1Friday, Oct. 17Index performanceSource: FactSetAs of Oct. 21, 4 p.m. ET

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1Oct. 21-0.6-0.4-0.200.20.40.60.81.0%Dow industrialsS&P 500Nasdaq Composite

This Weekend’s Magazine

Photo: Photograph by Caroline Gutman

The Calendar

Roughly 80 S&P 500 companies report results next week, with a greater diversity in sectors than just financials which were the majority last week. Coca-Cola, GE Aerospace, General Motors, and Netflix release earnings on Tuesday, followed by AT&T, IBM, Tesla on Wednesday. Blackstone, Ford Motor, and T-Mobile US announce quarterly results on Thursday, and Procter & Gamble ends the week reporting earnings on Friday.

With the government shutdown approaching 20 days, sidelining most federal economic data, investors get a rare set of data Friday with the release of the consumer price index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. S&P Global also releases its Manufacturing and Services Purchasing Managers’ Indexes on Friday.

What We’re Reading Today

Join Barron’s Live on Monday at noon. The price of gold has shot up 66% this year, and more gains seem in store. Barron’s Lauren Rublin and Ben Levisohn discuss the latest move with Aakash Doshi, global head of gold strategy for the SPDR ETF business at State Street. They’ll also examine the silver market, and bring listeners up to date on noteworthy companies reporting earnings during the week.

Barron’s Live features timely and actionable insights for investors. We give you behind-the-scenes conversations with the newsroom, connecting you with our editors and reporters covering the markets, the economy, and more.