JPMorgan Posts the Largest Quarterly Profit in U.S. Banking History
Net income of $21.2 billion led a quarter in which five of the country's largest banks earned a combined $49 billion, up 39% from a year earlier on booming trading and steady consumer credit.
NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase reported second-quarter net income of $21.2 billion, the highest quarterly profit ever recorded by an American bank, in a results season that saw the country's largest financial institutions beat expectations by unusually wide margins.
The bank earned $6.14 a share against a consensus near $5.85, on revenue of $58.02 billion. Profit rose about 41% from a year earlier, with every major line of business posting record revenue.
A quarter powered by markets
JPMorgan was not alone. Together, five of the largest U.S. banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs — earned roughly $49 billion in the quarter, an increase of about 39% from the prior year.
Bank of America reported net income of $6.4 billion, or $2.00 a share, up 17%, on revenue of $22.6 billion. Citigroup earned $3.15 a share on revenue of $24.77 billion, ahead of forecasts on both lines.
The common thread was market activity. Equities trading desks had their best quarter on record across the industry, and underwriting revenue surged as issuers rushed to take advantage of the strongest new-issue window in years.
Consumer credit held up
The other pillar was credit quality, which held steadier than many analysts expected given a labor market that has stopped adding jobs. Card charge-offs came in near expectations, and reserve builds were modest.
That resilience has a specific shape. Household finances have split, with higher-income borrowers supported by equity portfolios at record levels and lower-income borrowers stretched by energy costs and flat real wages. Banks with prime-heavy portfolios have felt very little of that stress so far.
What the results do not show
Record profits sit alongside two unresolved questions.
The first is what happens when trading normalizes. Volatility has been the industry's friend this year — an oil shock, a tariff regime rebuilt twice, a change of Federal Reserve chair and a trillion-dollar swing in semiconductor valuations all generate client flow. Quiet quarters generate less.
The second is credit at the margins of the system. The stresses that have surfaced this cycle — in private credit funds, in specialty lenders, in commercial real estate — sit largely outside the largest banks' balance sheets, but not outside their lending relationships.
