RE:EQB down, down, down ...No, not at all. It's because they had to take a write down on the secured lending they were forced to take out due to the Home Capital fiasco last year:
"Q2 2018 reported Diluted Earnings per share ("EPS") were $2.19 and reported Return on Shareholders' Equity ("ROE") was 13.0%.
Reported results include a $5.9 million pre-tax write-down of unamortized up-front costs (a $0.26 reduction in EPS and a 1.5 percentage point reduction in ROE) associated with reducing the size and costs of the Bank's secured backstop funding facility.
As announced in June 2018, the Company chose to reduce the secured backstop funding facility to $850 million from $2.0 billion due to successful measures taken to enhance liquidity and favourable funding market conditions."
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/equitable-group-reports-second-quarter-2018-results-690495471.html
Otherwise their EPS would have been $2.70!