California Foreclosures Forcing Wells Fargo To Boost Reserves

While this may unnerve some folks, I take it as a very healthy sign. Well Fargo is boosting it’s reserves to deal with the foreclosure problem it is facing, mostly in California. The company is not hiding behind any accounting trickery or denials but is instead recognizing the problem and confronting it.

An analyst said that San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) might be boosting reserves because of some of its holdings in the California real estate market, which has been very hard hit by the housing slump.

Keefe Bruyette & Woods Inc. analyst Frederick Cannon said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, “Wells Fargo is heavily exposed in areas where we will see significant credit losses over the next two years, and reserve levels are simply too low for those kind of costs