Wells Fargo & Co (WFC), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS) & More: This Week in Finance

Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), E*TRADE Financial Corp (NASDAQ:ETFC), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) were all in the spotlight this week due to the Fed’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged. Although the decision would normally have sparked a sell-off, shares of the three stocks either rallied or fell a fraction of a percent this week mainly due to confidence that the Federal Reserve will only be delaying the eventual rate hikes for a few more months. In the statement issued after the FOMC meeting, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen said that their “decision does not reflect a lack of confidence in the economy”. The Fed added that “near-term risks to the economic outlook appear roughly balanced”.

In other news, E*TRADE trended this week after news broke that hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors has been charged with insider trading. According to its last 13F, Leon Cooperman‘s Omega Advisors owned over 3.15 million shares of the brokerage at the end of June, which represent around 1.15% of the company’s outstanding stock. If his fund is forced to liquidate, some traders speculate that Omega could be forced to sell some or all of its E*TRADE shares.

Among the funds we track, 102 funds owned $5.28 billion of Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC)’s stock, which accounted for 3.90% of the float on June 30, versus 110 funds and $5.52 billion respectively on March 31. The number of funds with holdings in JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) rose by two quarter-over-quarter to 99 at the end of June, while in E*TRADE 35 investors amassed 11.30% of the float heading into the third quarter.

Disclosure: None