Executives of big U. S. banks expressed optimism on Friday about the outlook for 2017 in their first public comments about quarterly earnings since the U. S. presidential election in November. JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp, the two largest U. S. banks, kicked off the corporate reporting season on a rosy note, each with healthy increases in fourth-quarter profit. Those improvements came on the back of trading revenue gains, higher interest rates, healthy loan g, rowth and cost controls. On the flip side, the earnings of Wells Fargo & Co, which also reported on Friday, were hurt by the fallout of a sales scandal and a loss related to accounting, both of which are particular to the San Francisco-based lender.Results at regional lender PNC Financial Services Group Inc were better than expected, with Chief Financial Officer Rob Reilly predicting the bank will be able to increase revenue faster than expenses this year. Shares of all four banks climbed Friday afternoon, with JPMorgan up 0. 5 percent at $86. 64, Bank of America up 0. 4 percent at $23. 01, Wells Fargo up 1. 1 percent at $55. 15 and PNC up 0. 4 percent at $118. 39. On conference calls with reporters and analysts, top executives were sanguine about topics ranging from interest rates and loan g, rowth, to regulation and the incoming administration of President-Elect Donald Trump
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