Why Banco Santander SA (SAN) Went Up on Wednesday

We recently compiled a list of the 10 Companies Jump on Better Earnings, Outlook. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Banco Santander SA (NYSE:SAN) stands against the other stocks.

The stock market extended its winning streak on Wednesday, closing firmer as investors seemed to have already priced in the news of tit-for-tat tariffs and uncertainties surrounding the Artificial Intelligence industry.

The Dow Jones gained another 0.71 percent, the S&P 500 grew 0.39 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq increased by 0.19 percent.

Ten companies traded in line with the broader market sentiment, mostly on the back of record achievements in their latest earnings performance and optimistic outlook guidance.

To come up with Wednesday’s top gainers, we considered only the stocks with at least $2 billion in market capitalization and $5 million in daily trading volume.

A view of a large corporate office building, illuminated at night to show its power and reach.

Banco Santander SA (NYSE:SAN)

Shares in Banco Santander SA jumped by 9.55 percent on Wednesday to finish at $5.62 apiece as investors cheered news of record profits in the fourth quarter and full year of 2024.

In a statement, Banco Santander said net income from October to December 2024 increased by 11 percent to €3.27 billion ($3.4 billion) year-on-year, while net profit for the full year rose by 14 percent to €12.57 billion ($13.08 billion), marking its third consecutive year of record profits.

Banco Santander said its strong performance can be attributed to its robust lending income, albeit seeing revenues from loans this year falling amid projected interest rate cuts.

“Santander is in a new era of value creation, and we are confident that our scale, diversification, and the impact of our transformation will enable us to increase profitability again in 2025,” the company said.

Overall SAN ranks 8th on our list of Wednesday’s top gainers. While we acknowledge the potential of SAN as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than SAN but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.