JP Morgan profits fall by a fifth

JP Morgan, the world’s biggest bank, saw profits fall 18.5pc in the first quarter, missing forecasts.

The company, which is the first of America’s big four banks to report its first quarter financial results, suffered a slow-down in fixed income trading and mortgage lending.

Analysts said the same themes were likely to be repeated across Wall Street when the other banks deliver their results next week.

Profits fell to $5.27bn, down from $6.53bn the previous year, and well short of the $6bn that had been expected. Revenues dropped to $23.86bn, from $25.85bn.

The bank had already warned investors in February that trading revenue had fallen 15pc since the start of 2014. Chief executive, Jamie Dimon, said at the time that he was “completely comfortable” with the fall. However, it appears that decline got more acute as the quarter went on. Revenue from fixed income trading fell more than 26pc to $3.76bn.

Mr Dimon was upbeat about the company’s performance, however. “JPMorgan Chase had a good start to the year, given there were industrywide headwinds in markets and mortgage,” he said in a statement before the company’s earnings call.

Analysts also remained relatively optimistic.“It’s been a tough quarter for the industry,” Pri de Silva, an analyst at New York firm CreditSights told Bloomberg. “I’m not overly worried about JPMorgan unless I see something else going on apart from what we already know is lower fixed-income trading and mortgage results.”

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