The FINANCIAL — J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s second-quarter profit increased 5.2% as the firm benefited from strong trends in lending and corporate deals but wrestled with increasing volatility in markets, according to Nasdaq.
Shares edged up 1.2% premarket as earnings and revenue beat expectations.
The largest U.S. bank by assets reported a profit of $6.29 billion, or $1.54 a share. That compares with a profit of $5.98 billion, or $1.46 a share, in the same period of 2014. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected earnings of $1.44 a share.
Revenue fell 3.2% to $24.53 billion. Analysts had expected $24.49 billion.
After a strong first quarter, trading revenue decreased 8.9% to $4.51 billion from $4.95 billion in the second quarter of 2014.
Chief Executive James Dimon said at an investor conference in May that trading results were looking “a little bit worse” than in the prior period, but added that “I spend no time worrying about that” since short-term fluctuations in trading results often fall outside a bank’s control.
Costs decreased 6% to $14.5 billion from $15.43 billion. In late May The Wall Street Journal reported that J.P. Morgan began to eliminate more than 5,000 jobs as the bank looks to save on expenses.
Return on equity, a measure of the J.P. Morgan’s profitability, came in at 11% for the second quarter, unchanged from the second quarter a year ago. J.P. Morgan has faced questions from analysts and investors since the start of the year over whether it might be better for shareholders if the global bank broke itself up into smaller units.
Still, shares in J.P. Morgan hit an all-time high of $69.75 during the quarter and have risen 8.8% since the start the year. That was a better performance than the 4.6% increase in the KBW index of bank stocks over the same period.
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