JPMorgan Chase (JPM) missed Wall Street’s third-quarter estimates on Tuesday, October 13, a rare stumble for the largest US bank. It reported earnings of $5.57 per share against a $5.90 consensus, and managed revenue of $50.9 billion fell short of the roughly $51.3 billion analysts expected.
The stock shrugged it off. After drifting between small gains and losses before the bell, JPM shares were up about 1% in early trading, near $338.
What Went Wrong for JPMorgan
Two lines dragged the quarter:
- A securities loss. JPMorgan booked $658 million of pretax losses on investment securities, worth $0.18 a share. Without it, EPS was $5.75 (still a miss).
- Bond trading. Fixed-income markets revenue fell 4% from a year earlier to $5.4 billion, its first decline in more than two years.
Almost everything else grew. Equities trading jumped 49% to $5.0 billion, investment banking fees rose 14%, and net income still climbed 6% to $15.3 billion.
The Lending Engine Is Speeding Up
Net interest income (what JPMorgan earns on loans and securities after paying depositors) is the bank’s biggest profit engine, and it reached $27.0 billion this quarter.
TIKR’s data shows NII stuck between $23.2 billion and $23.4 billion for four straight quarters through mid-2025. It has risen every quarter since, from $23.97 billion a year ago to $25.51 billion in the second quarter. The third quarter’s $27.0 billion is up 13% year over year and 6% from the prior quarter.
Management also lifted its 2026 NII outlook to about $106.2 billion from $105.5 billion. Core earnings that are accelerating don’t point to a broken bank. The miss came from the volatile lines.
The Sentence in Dimon’s Statement That Matters Most
CEO Jamie Dimon’s statement included a short line: “we reduced share repurchases this quarter.”
That undersells it. JPMorgan bought back $6.79 billion of stock in the second quarter and more than $8.2 billion in each of the three quarters before that, per TIKR. The bank’s third-quarter financial supplement shows gross repurchases of just $1.06 billion, down from $6.70 billion on the same basis in the second quarter, a drop of about 84%.
Dimon framed it as putting the franchise and clients first, and paired it with a warning about sticky inflation, elevated asset prices and rising rates.
How the Other Banks Fared
Bond desks softened for some, not all. Goldman Sachs (GS) saw FICC revenue slip 1%, but a 72% jump in equities lifted EPS to $17.01, well above estimates. Citigroup (C) grew fixed income 4% and lifted profit 40%. Wells Fargo (WFC) missed on revenue and NII, so JPMorgan’s miss is part sector, part its own.
The Case For and Against JPMorgan Stock
The bull read: NII is up 13%, the full-year outlook went up, and a one-off loss explains most of the EPS gap. Nothing in the lending business slipped.
The bear read: the stock trades at 2.98 times tangible book, 28% above its 2.33x average since late 2021 and not far from the 3.25x peak. That premium was built while JPMorgan returned $7 billion to $8 billion a quarter through buybacks. It just cut quarterly buybacks to about $1.1 billion while warning about the economy.
The miss is noise. The buyback cut isn’t. At close to 3x tangible book, JPM is priced like a bank returning capital at full speed, and this quarter it chose not to. Fourth-quarter repurchases, due in mid-January, will show whether this was a pause or a new pace.
Want to see how JPMorgan’s NII, buybacks and valuation stack up against Goldman, Citi and Wells Fargo? Pull up the same charts on TIKR for free. Learn more here.
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
