Big Bank Earnings Start Monday — and the Valuations Are Screaming Bargain

Wall Street’s biggest week of the quarter kicks off tomorrow, and if you haven’t looked at bank stocks recently, you might be leaving money on the table. Goldman Sachs reports Monday morning, followed by JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo on Tuesday, with Bank of America and Morgan Stanley rounding it out Wednesday. That’s six of the largest U.S. banks in three days — and heading into this earnings parade, every one of them is trading at a lower forward price-to-earnings multiple than they were at the end of 2025.

Here’s the kicker: earnings estimates for all six have actually gone up over that same period. That’s the classic setup value investors dream about — lower price, higher expected earnings. The gap between sentiment and fundamentals is exactly the kind of mispricing that tends to correct, loudly, during earnings season.

Why are banks cheap right now? It’s a combination of macro anxiety and the overhang from the Iran war and oil shock. Higher energy prices create inflation fears, which muddy the rate-cut narrative, which makes bank net interest margin forecasting harder. When models get harder, institutional money goes defensive. Banks got lumped in with the “avoid” pile even as their balance sheets and earnings power quietly improved. The market has been pricing in a worst-case scenario that the underlying numbers simply don’t support.

The trade here isn’t blind optimism — it’s math. Goldman Sachs (GS) is sitting near its lowest P/E relative to earnings expectations in two years. JPMorgan (JPM), which has never stopped compounding through cycles, is priced like the economy is already in recession. Bank of America (BAC) offers a dividend yield above 3% on a stock that’s been hammered by rate fears that are starting to look overblown, especially with the Fed’s posture softening.

The three banking analysts MarketWatch interviewed this week all said the same thing: the selloff is divorced from fundamentals, and long-term investors sitting out this earnings season may look back and wish they hadn’t.

One caveat worth naming: guidance matters more than results this week. Banks know their numbers; the market wants to hear what they think is coming. If CEOs strike a cautious tone on loan demand or credit quality, the “bargain” thesis gets more complicated. But if Jamie Dimon steps to the mic Tuesday and sounds anything other than apocalyptic, you could see a sharp re-rating happen fast.

This is earnings season as opportunity. The clock starts Monday.