State Street Boasts Higher Profits, Ignores Losses

State Street beat earnings estimates handily this morning by posting profits of $530 million. The stock rallied nicely until the conference call when the company mentioned that its investment portfolio had $3.16 billion in unrealized losses. The company's claims that the losses were most likely temporary ("See? They're unrealized losses! They don't actually count!") failed to impress investors when it dawned on them that State Street may actually fail to realize it has losses. How many of those losses will turn into impairments is anybody's guess, but something tells me the answer in definitely not close to zero.