JPMorgan (JPM) Bond Desk Revenue Misses Estimates by More Than $500 Million

First Bond Desk Decline in Two Years

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) opened the third-quarter bank earnings season with an unwelcome figure: fixed income trading revenue came in below analyst estimates by more than $500 million. The desk produced $5.4 billion for the quarter, down 4% year over year, and recorded its first revenue decline in more than two years.

The miss landed despite conditions that should have helped bond traders. The 10-year Treasury yield sat near 5.2% on Tuesday, yet expectations of prolonged high rates did not translate into client activity. Herman Chan, a senior US banks analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, tied the shortfall directly to those rate expectations, which kept clients on the sidelines through September. The bank's overall revenue and net income both landed below analyst expectations as well, so the bond desk's stumble was not offset elsewhere on the income statement.

Equities carried the other side of the trading floor. JPMorgan's equities desk generated $5.0 billion, up 49% year over year, meaning the equity franchise expanded even as fixed income slipped. The divergence sets up the fourth quarter awkwardly: Chan expects seasonal declines in fourth-quarter trading revenue, and the equity run that powered this quarter now leans on the AI trade, which wobbled on Tuesday when chip stocks sold off. A pullback there would remove the growth engine that cushioned the bond desk's first drop in more than two years.

Goldman Sets the Quarter's Pace

Across the street, Goldman Sachs set the benchmark. Its equities desk generated $6.44 billion, a 72% jump year over year, nearly double the $3.47 billion its fixed income desk produced. Fixed income slipped 1% from a year earlier, and the division housing both desks still grew 32% to $13.46 billion. Chan called Goldman the gold standard for the third quarter.

The rate backdrop explains the split. New York Fed President John Williams said on Tuesday that one more rate hike this year looks appropriate, and that he does not expect another in 2027. Most Fed officials backed a further 2026 increase in the latest meeting minutes, and JPMorgan's own house view anticipates an additional hike in December. Elevated rates kept the lending side healthy: the bank's net interest income, the gap between what loans earn and what deposits cost, rose 12.8% to $27.04 billion.

Credit quality offered no broad red flags. The one caution came from Wells Fargo, which set aside $1.03 billion for loan losses, up from $681 million a year earlier. But trading, not credit, defined the quarter: clients traded equities in size while waiting out the bond market, and trading volumes on the equity side rewarded the desks positioned there.

Shares Sit Just Above Scored Support

JPMorgan shares last traded at $332.73, down 1.38% over 24 hours, inside a $321.64 to $344.98 range. COINOTAG data shows the strongest support on our composite scoring at $331.21, scored 90 out of 100, with the strongest resistance at $338.06, scored 100 out of 100. The daily RSI reads 37.3 and the trend reading is sideways. The shares are holding just above that top-scored support; a decisive close below it, rather than the earnings miss itself, would be what changes the stock's structure.