Wells Fargo CFO downplays questions over earnings quality

(Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co CFO John Shrewsberry on Wednesday deflected an analyst's questions over the quality of the bank's earnings, saying the results "speak for themselves."

During a question and answer session at a conference in New York, Deutsche Bank analyst Matt O'Connor asked Shrewsberry about concerns Wells Fargo's earnings have been "lower quality," or driven by market-related factors that might be difficult to repeat, as opposed to more traditional banking activities such as taking deposits and making loans.

Shrewsberry said the issue "might be a fun academic topic for analysts--you know, getting together and arguing about what's core and what's non-core," but is not a major source of concern at the bank.

"It's true that there's frequently from quarter to quarter something different about the composition at the margin of things that contribute to (profits), whether it's mortgage results or mortgage hedge results or non interest income items like gains from investing activity or tax items," Shrewsberry said. Still, he said the bank's earnings "have been the strongest in the business for at least the last five years or so."

Wells Fargo shares opened lower on Wednesday, but made back some of those losses by mid-morning, similar to other big U.S. banks like Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp.

(Reporting by Dan Freed in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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