Three major banks on Wall Street have kicked off the reporting season in the USA.
JP Morgan Chase & Co is falling in futures trading after the bank's quarterly figures – despite a record-high profit. But Citigroup is rising after unexpectedly large cost savings.
Ongoing high interest rates, strong demand for credits, and increased revenues from advisory services in connection with deals and stock exchange trading are bringing in unexpectedly large sums of money to JP Morgan Chase & Co.
The bottom line was a record profit of 18.1 billion, up 25 percent compared to the same period last year for the second quarter. Per share, it was 6.12 dollars, which was more than expected.
However, a large part of the profit increase – specifically 7.9 billion dollars – is a result of JP Morgan bringing home profits from its ownership in the payment service Visa.
If you exclude Visa revenues and other one-time items, the profit was 13.1 billion, down from 14.5 billion the previous year. The JP Morgan share is falling 0.5 percent in futures trading after the report.
Wells Fargo has also presented quarterly figures, and there the thumbs are also down on the stock exchange after a lowered forecast for the full year. The smaller competitor's costs are increasing more than expected – up 2 percent to 13.3 billion dollars. Analysts had on average expected an increase of 0.2 percent.
Citigroup managed to press down costs by 2 percent in the second quarter, which was a little more than expected. This contributed to lifting the net profit to 3.2 billion dollars or 1.52 dollars per share. The share is rising after the report.
