Deutsche Bank posts a surprise bounce back to profit with 3rd-quarter earnings, driven by 47% jump in debt-trading

• Deutsche Bank beat expectations with its third-quarter earnings with a surprise return to profit, and posted a 47% jump in trading fixed-income securities and currencies.
• The bank set aside 273 million euros as provisions for bad loans, lower than the 371 million euros analysts polled by Bloomberg estimated. 
• This was Deutsche Bank’s strongest quarter in a year hammered by the coronavirus, as a market rally that started in 2019 provided an unexpected boost to its trading unit.
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Deutsche Bank swung to profit in the third-quarter helped by a 47% jump in trading debt securities. 

Germany’s largest lender posted a net profit of 182 million euros ($214 million) in its strongest quarter of the year, beating expectations of a 114 million euro loss ($134 million). 

“We not only demonstrated continued cost discipline, but also our ability to gain market share,” Christian Sewing, Deutsche Bank’s CEO, said in a statement.

Here are the key numbers:

• Net revenue: 5.9 billion euros ($6.9 billion) versus 5.5 billion euros ($6.4 billion) expected
• Common equity tier 1 ratio: 13.3% versus 13.1% expected
• Credit provisions: 273 million euros ($321 million) versus 371 million euros ($436 million) expected

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Income from trading fixed-income securities and currencies rose 47% to 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion), thanks to higher market volatility that was accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Deutsche Bank set aside 273 million euros for the quarter as provisions for bad loans, adding to the 761 million euros allocated in the second quarter and 506 million in the first. Compared to its competitors, Deutsche was able to set aside less cash to deal with credit losses given its reliance on German government support and quality of its loan book.

The bank had a net loss of 832 million euros in the same period last year after announcing a series of measures to restructure its operations. The transformation was meant to cut costs to return to long-term profitability.

Deutsche Bank fell as much as 3% in early trading on Wednesday, but its stock is up more than 9% year-to-date.

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