NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase’s first-quarter profit wasn’t as good as last year’s, but it told investors what they wanted to hear: Banking isn’t dead.
JPMorgan became the third big bank in a week to release upbeat earnings news, reporting Thursday that it earned $2.14 billion for the January- March period, thanks to both strong trading activity and consumer banking. The company’s performance added to the evidence that the financial industry is starting to recover from the devastating losses caused by the credit crisis and the recession, even as banks still contend with rising loan defaults.
The bank also said that it sold $3 billion worth of 10-year bonds on Thursday at 6.3 percent interest, its first sale in U.S. dollars in the past month without backing from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
JPMorgan had participated in the FDIC’s debt-guarantee program to raise money for financial institutions, but this time it didn’t need government backing. The bank sold bonds worth 2 billion euros at the end of March.
The bank said it is benefiting from growth in deposits, a rise in mortgage refinancings and low interest rates that allow it to borrow cheaply and then charge customers more for loans. The company followed Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in reporting that earnings improved during the January-March period.
“The results are quite strong in a very challenging environment,” said Tom Kersting, a banking analyst at Edward Jones.
