Major US banks JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), Citigroup (C), and Bank of America (BAC) released fourth-quarter results on Friday, revealing mixed signals on how financial institutions are positioned entering 2024. Investor focus centered on annual net interest income gains tied to higher rates in addition to credit loss provisions.

Yahoo Finance's Rachelle Akuffo and Akiko Fujita break down the details, providing insights into what these earnings mean for consumers.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith.

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Happy earnings season to all who celebrate. The big banks kicked off the fourth fiscal quarter before the bell with a pretty mixed picture. You can see JP Morgan and Citigroup were in the green. As you can see now, just JP Morgan at the moment in the green. While Bank of America and Wells Fargo falling about 90 minutes into the trading day.

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Now, the big theme that we're honing in on today is what these results say about the consumer. In that vein, let's get into some of our key takeaways here. So as we look at what we saw, we've got the four biggest banks here. We're looking at credit loss provisions and net interest income.

So when we think about the state of the consumer, of course, we're thinking about interest rates. And so we saw Jamie Dimon was saying, look, the economy continues to be resilient, consumer is still spending, expecting a soft landing. But when you look at net interest income, or NII-- that's your revenue from loans, things like mortgages and autos, minus what you pay out in expenses for deposits and funds-- they had a bumper year here. But there was a word of caution though as we expect those interest rates at some point to start declining and that start to take a bite in there, Akiko.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, you know, Rachelle, when you look at the major banks here, talking about the broader headline, it feels like we're seeing a bit of a divergence, right? I mean, you noted at JP Morgan, record profit here, record annual profit, I should say. At the same time, we're hearing from Citigroup about the cut to 10% of its workforce, something that was expected. But as it relates to the consumer, some interesting comments coming through, specifically on credit loss provisions.

Wells Fargo certainly seeing provisions-- or higher provisions there at $1.28 billion compared with the $957 million in the same period last year. In many ways, as you pointed out, Rochelle, we're hearing about the resilient consumer, but potential word of caution on the horizon as we look ahead. CEO Charlie Scharf saying that, "As we look forward, our business performance remains sensitive to interest rates and the health of the US economy."