JPMorgan Chase: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

The stock market doesn`t like JPMorgan today, again. In the morning the bank reported her Q3-numbers which were disappointing. Their profit per share was higher than the analysts had expected, but this was just the result of an accounting trick: They reduced the value of some of their own bonds (which are a part of their debts). Without that artificial gain the profit was way less than expected.

Their investment banking division suffered a loss. Fees from investment banking declined around 30%. The bank could show a small profit because their consumer business did well. The so called retail banking (consumer credit and other consumer business) revenue rose 11 percent to $7.5 billion. Credit card sales volume rose 10 percent, reflecting higher consumer spending, Yahoo Finance reported.

The JPMorgan numbers reflect the whole picture of the current U.S. economy: The good, the bad and the ugly.  Their solid consumer business benefits from solid U.S. consumer expenditures, which are the engine of the whole economy (because they generate around two-third of the national income). It looks like the consumers saved the bank.

The bad & the ugly part is that their investment banking businesses, especially trading with stocks, bonds, currencies and other assets, lost money. I guess these people trust too much in their investing abilities, which are quite pathetic. Since 2008 the banks are sliding from one mess into another. When do they ever learn?