JPMorgan (JPM) Misses Q3 EPS at $5.75 After $658 Million Securities Loss

JPMorgan Misses on Both Lines

JPMorgan (JPM), the largest bank in the United States, missed on both profit and revenue when it reported third-quarter results on Tuesday. Stripping out a $658 million loss on securities, the bank earned $5.75 per share, short of the $5.92 consensus tracked by Bloomberg. That consensus had been revised upward since mid-year, which raised the bar into the print. The shortfall sat in the trading division: fixed-income revenue, which covers bonds, currencies and commodities, fell 4% to $5.4 billion. Shares dropped roughly 3% in premarket New York trading. The loss itself sat outside core lending, in marks on securities the bank holds on its own balance sheet.

The miss carried more weight than a routine earnings wobble because bank results act as an early health check on the economy, and this batch landed a month after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, with bond yields near a 24-year high. Investors treat lenders as a proxy for credit conditions, which is why the miss drew as much attention as the beats elsewhere in the batch. The figures pointed in one direction: a loss on the bank's own book and a shrinking trading line suggested higher rates are starting to bite even where loan demand holds up.

The market's verdict was milder than the premarket drop implied. COINOTAG data shows the stock changing hands at $337.23, up 0.60% over the past 24 hours, as the early slide faded. Our support and resistance readings frame the range: support at $333.15, scored 97/100, and resistance at $338.94, scored 78/100. The daily RSI sits at 47.8 and the MACD signal is bullish, so the miss left the stock range-bound rather than trending lower. A daily close under $333.15, the strongest level on our readings, would change that picture.

Chief executive Jamie Dimon cast the quarter as pressure building under an economy that is still growing. The company's investor-relations disclosure quotes him saying that “large fiscal deficits, sticky inflation, elevated asset prices, rising interest rates and geopolitical conditions continue to shift under the surface.” The release did not split the $658 million securities loss into one-off marks versus recurring positions and offered no fourth-quarter outlook for the trading division, so the size of the rate drag remains an open question.

Two Beats Balance the Batch

Goldman Sachs set the tone, beating profit forecasts by about 30% on Tuesday with earnings of $17.01 per share against the $13.09 analysts expected. Net revenue rose 23% to $18.68 billion, according to the filing with securities regulators. Its equities desk, which trades stocks for hedge funds and other large clients, took in $6.44 billion, while bond trading held flat. Goldman also lent a record amount to hedge funds in the quarter, further evidence that borrowed bets on stocks are piling up. Wells Fargo earned $1.87 per share, a slim beat, but revenue of $21.87 billion came in 2.1% short of forecasts, and net interest income, the gap between what a bank earns on loans and pays on depositors, landed at $12.52 billion, also short. The bank's loan book grew strongly, which made the income shortfall harder to explain. Citigroup closed the batch with a clear beat, earning $2.85 per share against $2.65 expected. Revenue rose 8% to $23.8 billion, its best third quarter in a decade, and bond-trading revenue added 4%. Its equities revenue climbed 14% on prime brokerage, the business servicing hedge funds, where client balances grew more than 40%. The four reports all landed on Tuesday, giving markets a single-day read on the largest lenders. The two beats and two misses left index futures barely moved, and that fits the season: FactSet expects bank profits to grow about 3%, against 29.6% for the S&P 500, and the financial sector trades at about 14.3 times forward earnings. The rally therefore rests on technology and energy rather than lenders, and the spread beyond tech that bulls wanted from this batch did not arrive. Attention now shifts to Wednesday's inflation report, which carries more weight for stocks than these results did. JPMorgan's shares finished the session just under their nearest resistance at $338.94, scored 78/100 in COINOTAG's composite.