JPMorgan's First Quarter Profit Rises 67 Percent

JNEW YORK (By Claire Baldwin) - JPMorgan Chase & Co posted a 67 percent increase in first-quarter earnings, topping Wall Street expectations, as it set aside less money to cover bad loans.

But the news was not all positive for the second-largest U.S. bank. It said it was still suffering from high mortgage losses. The bank's book of consumer loans shrank by 10 percent in the quarter, and loans to companies did not rise enough to offset that.

But the results were good enough to lift JPMorgan shares 1.2 percent in premarket trading. JPMorgan is the first of the big banks to post quarterly results, and its earnings often give investors a hint of what to expect from other financial companies.

"These were good numbers. They beat estimates, but not massively. I think the financial sector generally is holding up but is not performing quite as well as we would like to see," said Peter Dixon, an economist at Commerzbank in London.

JPMorgan said it earned $5.56 billion, or $1.28 a share, up from $3.33 billion, or 74 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.

Wall Street analysts, on average, had expected $1.16 per share.
The bank set aside just $1.17 billion to cover bad loans, down from $7.01 billion a year earlier.

Chief Executive Jamie Dimon is often credited with skillfully piloting his bank through the financial crisis, but many investors are now looking for signs of revenue growth.

In recent quarters, the bank has boosted profit mainly by setting aside less money to cover credit losses, rather than by generating more money from new customers.

Pre-provision profit, a measure of how much money the bank earns before accounting for credit losses, fell 20 percent to $9.23 billion. Loans on the bank's books fell 4 percent to $686 billion, indicating demand for loans is tepid compared with how quickly existing loans are being repaid.

"The key is loan growth," said Adrian Cronje, chief investment officer at wealth management firm Balentine in Atlanta.

"That's what will ultimately turn this recovery into a durable expansion, but it seems like that's not yet happening."
JPMorgan's investment banking profits fell to $2.37 billion from $2.47 billion a year earlier.
(Reporting by Clare Baldwin; editing by John Wallace)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[VKoval]

09:47 AM on 04/13/2011

happy i have this stock :)

[joyf1]

10:06 AM on 04/13/2011

We own their corporate bonds and I'm not happy since a 67% increase in profits is obscene.

[VKoval]

10:14 AM on 04/13/2011

more money is never obscene

[Akhil Khanna]

08:29 AM on 04/13/2011

The market operators ie banksters are earning their revenues nowadays by driving the USD index down and pumping up everything else. This process will continue till there are no long positions left in the USD index and no short positions in any of the commoditie­­s, stock or currencies other than the USD.

The operators are then likely to take the long position on the dollar and short position on everything else. They would then use their money power to move the markets in the direction which would get them the maximum profit while screwing all other traders / hedge funds / investors.

The stock, commodity and currency exchanges have been reduced to gambling dens whereby the more powerful traders with deep pockets move the markets to maximize their own profits at the expense of the remaining not so powerful players. The big boys have enormous money power to move the markets in the direction which results in maximum profits for themselves­­. They effectivel­­y use the media to lure the other players in the market to a position where they would incur maximum loss.

The markets will fall only when the banksters have eliminated all the short positions and only they themselves have positioned themselves to profit when the market falls
OR
When an unexpected world event catches the banksters with their pants down and the softwares they use to rig the markets go berserk beyond their control.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article24581.html