The country’s largest bank just raked in more quarterly profit than any US bank ever. <\/p>\n
JPMorgan Chase (JPM<\/a>) said profits jumped 41% to $21.2 billion in its second quarter, or $7.70 per share, far exceeding the $5.64 per share analyst had expected. Total net revenue rose 28% to $57 billion, compared to $45 billion in the year-ago quarter. <\/p>\n JPMorgan said a big profit boost came from a $4.6 billion net gain on the sale of Visa shares<\/a> held by its corporate division. It noted another $1 billion of gains on certain equity investments. During its prior record quarter in 2024, JPMorgan also recognized gains related to its Visa shares. <\/p>\n Without those one-time gains, the bank’s net income of $16.9 billion still would have handily beaten the Street’s expectations. <\/p>\n “It’s getting close to as good as it gets,” CEO Jamie Dimon said when asked about the current banking environment during a Tuesday analyst call. <\/p>\n “We’re in a very healthy, active, exuberant market with very high prices and very high volumes. We benefit from that. We just don’t know how long it will continue,” he added. <\/p>\n Dimon didn’t shy away from pointing to the market’s biggest risks: geopolitical tensions, wars, sticky inflation, and elevated asset prices. <\/p>\n “We cannot predict how these forces will ultimately play out,” he warned in the company’s press release. “They can easily collide in a way that will surprise you,” he added in a call with reporters. <\/p>\n JPMorgan’s results kick off what analysts expect will be another strong earnings season for big banks. The industry has been buoyed by a resurgence in Wall Street activity, with its dealmaking and trading businesses benefiting from a swell in capital-raising to fund the AI boom. <\/p>\n For JPMorgan, equity trading jumped 86% from a year ago to a record $6 billion. <\/p>\n The equity underwriting group, which includes underwriting initial public offerings, earned fees from several of the quarter’s biggest AI-related deals. That includes SpaceX’s (SPCX<\/a>) blockbuster IPO and Alphabet’s (GOOG<\/a>, GOOGL<\/a>) even larger follow-on stock sale. Revenue from that unit jumped 78% to $829 million. <\/p>\n Other giants, including Bank of America<\/a> (BAC<\/a>), Citigroup (C<\/a>), Wells Fargo (WFC<\/a>), and Goldman Sachs<\/a> (GS<\/a>), also reported results Tuesday morning. <\/p>\n JPMorgan’s lending business remained a core profit engine in the period. Its net interest income rose 10% to $25.5 billion. The company also raised its full-year guidance for net interest income (excluding its Markets business) by $1.5 billion to $96.6 billion, according to an earnings presentation. <\/p>\n The bank’s Main Street businesses showed US consumers remain in healthy conditions. Combined debit and credit card sales volume rose 10% from the year-ago period at its consumer bank. The company lowered the percentage of card loans it expects to write off this year to 3.2%, down from its 3.4% April projection. <\/p>\n “We’ve talked about the consumer being fine, and I think relative to that, the consumer is maybe slightly better this quarter … the labor market remains quite resilient,” JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum said. <\/p>\n “It’s not a dramatic shift,” he said, “but at the margin, I would say the consumer is a little bit stronger.” <\/p>\n David Hollerith covers a range of developments throughout the financial sector, from Wall Street to banking and asset management to crypto and fintech. Email him at david.hollerith@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on X at @DsHollers. <\/p>\n