JPMorganChase's profits climb on investment banking surge

• Key insight: JPMorganChase's bottom line grew in the first three months of the year, as the bank's markets business boomed in the first quarter.
• Supporting data: The company reeled in record markets revenue of $11.6 billion, a 20% rise from the prior quarter.
• Expert quote: "Timelines in the Middle East are kind of quite short. There are deadlines on negotiations. I think it's reasonable for people to proceed with their plans in the hope, or maybe expectation, that we get relatively quick resolutions," — Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum

This story has been updated with executives' commentary from Tuesday morning calls with analysts and reporters.

JPMorganChase saw profits climb in the first quarter of 2026, as strong investment banking activity driven by market volatility lifted earnings.

While the war in Iran raised concerns about the economic landscape, the uncertain environment also stirred up the $4.9 trillion-asset bank's bread-and-butter business on Wall Street, where investment banking fees surged 23% from the prior quarter.

Markets revenue of $11.6 billion was up 20%, and marked a new record, said CEO Jamie Dimon.

JPMorgan Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum said that some of the bank's "robust results" in the first quarter were due to the acceleration of some M&A deal closures.

"Timelines in the Middle East are kind of quite short. There are deadlines on negotiations. I think it's reasonable for people to proceed with their plans in the hope, or maybe expectation, that we get relatively quick resolutions," Barnum said on a call with analysts. "But if things start getting derailed, I would be surprised if you didn't see some impact on sentiment and on deal decision-making."

The bank brought in $5.94 per diluted share in the first quarter, compared to $5.07 a year ago, handily beating consensus analyst estimates of $5.46. JPMorgan reeled in $50 billion of revenue, a 9% increase from $45 billion a year ago.

JPMorgan also announced Tuesday that its bottom line climbed more than 27% in the first three months of 2026, to $16.5 billion, as the performance of its community and commercial banking unit also ticked up.

Barnum said on a call with reporters that he would "caution against" projecting forward the outperformance of the first quarter, because "conditions were unique."

Dimon said in a prepared statement that while the economy was remaining resilient, there were "an increasingly complex set of risks," such as geopolitical tension. He added that eventually credit will face a downturn, which he thinks will be "far worse than people expect."

He added, though, that despite the market's increasing concerns around private credit, the sector didn't pose a detrimental threat to the banking system.

Net charge-offs at the bank were $2.3 billion, down $16 million from the prior year.

In the first quarter, JPMorgan's total provision for credit losses was $2.5 billion, down 46% from the prior quarter, and 24% from the prior year.

Some of the improvement in JPMorgan's performance versus the previous quarter can be attributed to a one-time offset in the fourth quarter of 2025. At the end of last year, the bank's results took a hit due to a $2.2 billion provision for credit loss related to its acquisition of Apple's $20 billion portfolio of credit card offerings from Goldman Sachs.

In the first quarter, expenses were up $27 billion, or 14%, from the first quarter of 2025, due to higher revenue-related compensation and growth in the bank's front office workforce, as well as higher brokerage expenses, higher marketing expenses and auto lease depreciation.

Net interest income excluding markets was $23.3 billion, up 3%, driven by higher deposit balances and higher revolving balances in cards. The growth was muted by the offsetting impact of lower rates.

The bank held its full-year outlook for 2026 stable from its fourth-quarter guidance, forecasting $103 billion of net interest income, $95 billion of net interest income excluding markets, $105 billion of expenses and a card services net charge-off rate of about 3.4%.

JPMorgan's stock was down about 1% on Tuesday afternoon. The company's share price is down over 3% for the year, compared with a roughly flat performance this year by the KBW Nasdaq Bank Index.

Capital cushion

JPMorgan estimated it has some $572 billion of loss-absorbing capital, and reported a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of 14.3%.

Dimon weighed in Tuesday on regulators' recent Basel III capital proposal, saying that it "mitigated the most severe consequences of the 2023 proposals," a reference to a plan during the Biden administration that drew a fierce backlash from banks. Still, Dimon said "there are still aspects of the proposed rules that need to be addressed."

In his annual letter to shareholders, released last week, Dimon called parts of the most recent proposal "frankly nonsensical," such as the new surcharge plan for global systemically important banks.

Under the new proposal, JPMorgan's surcharge would drop to about 5%, but Dimon said that would mean the bank would still have to hold as much as 50% more capital across most of its loans to U.S. consumers and businesses than non-too-big-to-fail banks.

"We hope that regulators prioritize well-designed regulation and address these aspects of the proposed rules to allow banks of all sizes to deploy their resources to support the real economy," Dimon said Tuesday in the company's earnings release.