JPMorgan Chase earns $3.6 billion, but loan losses remain high

[Ardent15]

NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase reported strong third-quarter earnings Wednesday as its thriving investment banking business more than offset rising loan losses that the bank warned would continue for the foreseeable future.

JPMorgan, the first of the big banks to report earnings for the July-September period, reported a $3.59 billion profit but also said it roughly doubled the amount of money it set aside for failed home and credit card loans in the quarter.

The bank's earnings cheered investors, who sent JPMorgan stock and the overall market higher. Still, the bank's performance shouldn't be taken as a forecast for how well other banks did. Many financial companies don't have such big investment banking operations, which includes trading of stocks and bonds and allowed JPMorgan to overcome its loan losses.

Banks including JPMorgan have predicted for some time that their loan losses would keep rising. And in JPMorgan's earnings statement, CEO Jamie Dimon confirmed that this trend continues.

----
Rest of article here
<http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13559008>

[AllentownJake]

1. They changed the accounting rules

JP Morgan is still sitting on an awful lot of toxic assets. The only thing that's changed is they don't have to write them down to their actual value. It is essentially government sanctioned fraud.