John Stumpf

Wells Fargo Executives Boast Of Stability, Less Risk

Wells Fargo & Co.

's (WFC) top two executives kicked off their investor day by reassuring Wall Street that Wells Fargo is a more stable and less risky company than other big banks."You can't take outsized risk in the financial services industry," Chief Financial Officer Timothy Sloan told investors assembled here Tuesday morning, just over a week after J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) reported that a bet on credit default swaps went badly wrong. "We have less risk than our peers."Chief Executive John Stumpf said part of Wells Fargo's culture is to be "willing to say, 'I don't understand this, I won't do this'."Referring to a recent call by Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, to break up big banks, Stumpf said Wells Fargo's diverse revenue stream and geographic diversification makes his bank safer. "I understand what he said," Stumpf said, but "I think today we are less risky than we ever were."Wells Fargo, the nation's fourth-largest bank by assets, has taken t...

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