One by one, banks reported some scintillating results for the first quarter. The numbers trounced expectations-leading some to wonder how the analysts could get it so wrong--at the likes of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and others. The six biggest bank holding companies--Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley raked (NYSE: MS) in $18.7 billion in profits in the first quarter--made more than six times as much as they earned in the fourth quarter of 2009. That was their best collective results since the financial crisis of 2008.

But was it all a tease? At the Bloomberg Markets Global Hedge Fund and Investor Summit in New York, Bank analyst Meredith Whitney (Meredith Whitney news) suggests some caution may be in order. The comps will be really hard, and there may not be a repeat of the write-ups tied to credit assets. You have to wonder if the surge in revenue tied to trading and sales of bonds has no place to go but down as well. All this makes any talk of dividend hikes somewhat premature. 

For more:
- here's the Bloomberg article

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