In his Tuesday appearance on Squawk on the Street, Jim Cramer continued to assert that Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC)’s multiple was too low. Throughout the course of this year, the CNBC TV host has maintained that banking stocks are trading at low multiples. As for Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC), he has asserted that the bank’s current story is a long-term turnaround that should take a while to properly execute. For instance, in April, ahead of the bank’s first quarter earnings, Cramer remarked that Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) was not “an earnings story.” He added that “it’s a long-term turnaround story, orchestrated by CEO Charlie Scharf, a fantastic bank exec who wants that stock price higher, is willing to buy back a lot of stock to do so.” The turnaround and the market’s opinion about Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) was on his mind in this show as well, since he believes that the current multiple is a mistake:
“How about Charlie Scharf at 12 times. Charlie Scharf gets up in the morning and he goes, good morning, I hate my multiple. At times he says, I hate my multiple, good morning. I mean this is a guy who is not happy. He’s bringing all these people in they’re moving up very much in the table in investment banking and in M&A. No one seems to care, I think that’s a mistake.”
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) is currently trading at a forward price-to-earnings multiple of 12.09, according to data on Yahoo Finance, which is slightly lower than the Money Center Banks’ multiple of 13.04, according to Aswath Damodaran. The bank reported its second quarter earnings on July 14th. The results saw the firm post $22.62 billion in revenue and $2.00 in earnings per share to beat analyst estimates of $1.72.
Over the past couple of years, Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) has also been at the center of a major turnaround. The bank is currently repairing trust issues and emerging from the elimination of an asset cap enforced by the Federal Reserve. It is also exiting non-core businesses, and over the years, has sold its rail equipment lease business, its mortgage servicing unit, auto finance division and private equity investments.
On July 15th, Baird discussed Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC)’s shares. It kept a Neutral rating on the shares and raised the price target to $92 from $85. The financial firm commented on the bank’s recent share price movement and outlined that it made the stock more fairly valued. The coverage came after Baird had warned in January that the removal of the asset cap had injected a lot of enthusiasm into Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC)’s shares.
As of Q1 2026, 82 out of the 1,022 hedge funds in Insider Monkey’s database had held a stake in Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC). This marked a jump over the 72 out of the 1,041 that had held a stake in Q4 2025. Notable hedge funds include Harris Associates, Pzena Investment Management, and Millennium Management. Out of these, only Millennium boosted the holdings as they grew by 17%. On the other hand, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) and Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE:COF) are more popular among hedge funds. over Wells Fargo. Starting from the former, 131 funds owned its shares in Q4 and Q1, while 136 and 135 funds held the latter’s stock in the two quarters, respectively.
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