On Wednesday, Societe Generale SA shared that it is expecting to post a very marginal profit for 2009's fourth-quarter, much below market expectations, mainly on the back of write-downs and provisions on real-estate related assets, in addition to a fall in investment banking activity level, and all these factor together weighed down on profits and earnings.

The announcement from SocGen has come amidst growing market concerns over some of Europe's major investment banks. Speculations are that they are preparing themselves to face a sharp fall in the fourth-quarter fixed-income revenue, with the credit trading boom which had managed to hike earnings over the past quarters starting to cool down.

Although no definite figures were given by the company, it did say that earnings would be much below the expectations of 1.06 Billion Euros.

According to a Paris based analyst, the warning on earnings was a "nasty surprise", while stressing that it will most likely lead to pull backs and falls in dividend expectations for the complete year.

The full fourth-quarter profit report is expected by the company on February 18.