NEW YORK, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Four of the largest U.S. banks reported mixed third-quarter results on Tuesday, with JPMorgan Chase posting a rare earnings miss while Goldman Sachs delivered a blowout quarter on surging equities trading.
JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets, reported earnings per share of 5.57 U.S. dollars, missing analysts' expectation of roughly 5.9 dollars. JPMorgan's revenue of about 50.2 billion dollars also fell short of estimates, as fixed-income trading disappointed and the bank took a 658-million-dollar loss on investment securities.
Goldman Sachs, by contrast, posted its second-best quarter ever for revenues at 18.68 billion dollars, nearly 2 billion above estimates, powered by a 72 percent jump in equities trading revenue.
Citigroup beat expectations with earnings per share of 2.85 dollars on revenues of 23.85 billion dollars, its best third quarter in a decade as net income jumped 40 percent.
Wells Fargo's results were more uneven. Its earnings per share narrowly beat estimates at 1.87 dollars, but both revenue and net interest income missed.
"The U.S. economy continued to be fueled by strong business investment and ongoing consumer spending," said JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. But he also warned that large fiscal deficits, sticky inflation, elevated asset prices, rising interest rates and geopolitical tensions "continue to shift under the surface."
Bank shares reflected the split verdict. Goldman rose about 1 percent and JPMorgan was flat. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo fell more than 2 percent and Citigroup dropped about 4 percent despite its beat.
The broader banking sector has lagged badly recently, with the KBW Nasdaq Bank Index down more than 8 percent over the past three months as investors fretted over rates, AI disruption and geopolitics.
Analysts said the results did little to settle a bruising debate over bank stocks, which suffered their steepest quarterly decline since the 2023 regional banking crisis.
Barclays analyst Jason Goldberg argued the selloff went too far. "In our view, recent stock weakness has been driven more by fear than fundamentals, setting up a solid earnings season to re-anchor investors on underlying performance."
On credit quality, the news was reassuring. JPMorgan said it expects a net charge-off rate of about 3.2 percent in its card business, down from an earlier 3.4 percent forecast.
"The consumer is currently very healthy, primarily because of a healthy labor market," said JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum, though he cautioned that an extended rate cycle would "almost by definition" bring higher unemployment and weaker credit.
Wells Fargo CFO Mike Santomassimo said credit is "really good" across consumer and business clients, with delinquency trends "a little better than we expected."
Bank of America and Morgan Stanley will report third-quarter results on Wednesday.
