NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Jan. 19, 2011--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings on U.S. Bancorp (USB; A+/Stable/A-) are unaffected by the bank's relatively good fourth-quarter earnings, given the current weak operating environment. The company posted pretax Standard&Poor's-adjusted earnings of $1.1 billion, up 1.6% from the previous quarter's earnings and 64.5% from those of the prior year. Adjusted revenue rose slightly sequentially as an increase in average earning assets and improved fee income helped offset a decline of 8 basis points (bps) in the net interest margin (NIM) to 3.83%, reflecting lower interest rates and USB's investment in lower yielding securities to help boost liquidity to comply with Basel III. NIM will likely keep
