JPMorgan traders blow past expectations with biggest-ever haul
The biggest US bank has pulled in US$11.6 billion in trading revenue in the first quarter
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[NEW YORK] JPMorgan Chase’s traders posted their highest-ever quarterly revenue in the first three months of the year, with record stock-trading results boosting the total past the firm’s previous record by almost US$2 billion.
The biggest US bank pulled in US$11.6 billion in trading revenue in the first quarter, according to a statement on Tuesday (Apr 14). That was up 20 per cent from a year earlier, with both stock traders and their counterparts in fixed income, currencies and commodities beating analysts’ expectations.
Investment-banking fees of US$2.88 billion also came in ahead of estimates.
“The US economy remained resilient in the quarter, with consumers still earning and spending and businesses still healthy,” chief executive officer Jamie Dimon said in the statement. “At the same time, there is an increasingly complex set of risks – such as geopolitical tensions and wars, energy price volatility, trade uncertainty, large global fiscal deficits and elevated asset prices.”
Net interest income rose 9 per cent to US$25.4 billion. But the firm lowered its full-year guidance back to US$103 billion, where it stood before an investor update in February, when JPMorgan said it expected to earn about US$104.5 billion in NII this year.
Shares of JPMorgan, down 2.7 per cent this year through Monday, fell 3.1 per cent in early trading in New York.
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Also reporting results on Tuesday are Citigroup and Wells Fargo, with Bank of America and Morgan Stanley set for Wednesday. Goldman Sachs Group kicked off earnings season Monday with a stock-trading haul that beat its own record from the final three months of last year.
Wall Street trading desks have been on a hot streak since US President Donald Trump won the 2024 election. His policy moves have repeatedly whipsawed markets across equities, rates and commodities, boosting client activity and the money banks make from facilitating those trades.
JPMorgan’s FICC traders earned US$7.08 billion in the quarter, their second-best on record. That contrasts with Goldman, which reported a surprise drop in bond-trading revenue, missing estimates by more than US$800 million.
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The US$1.8 trillion private-credit industry has been a focal point amid mounting concern that redemption requests and fears over the impact of artificial intelligence will weigh on the sector. For banks, that has translated to investor questions about their lending to the industry. Earlier this year, JPMorgan marked down the value of certain loans that serve as collateral against the bank’s loans to private-credit funds.
“In the great scheme of things, private credit probably does not present a systemic risk,” Dimon wrote in his annual letter to shareholders earlier this month. “When we have a credit cycle, which will happen one day, losses on all leveraged lending in general will be higher than expected, relative to the environment. This is because credit standards have been modestly weakening pretty much across the board.”
In terms of credit more broadly, JPMorgan increased the pile of money set aside for potentially soured loans by US$191 million in the first quarter, less than analysts expected.
Costs, meanwhile, were US$26.9 billion in the quarter, higher than expected. JPMorgan said in February that it expects to spend about US$105 billion this year, excluding legal expense, and it reaffirmed that figure on Tuesday. BLOOMBERG
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