US bank JPMorgan Chase has reported a better than expected profit for the first three months of this year, as revenue from its investment bank overshadowed losses on consumer loans.
But the bank said the pace of loan losses has slowed. Investors had been looking to JPMorgan - the first of the major US banks to report results - to end worries over banks' health, and reassure that the financial crisis is fading.
The New York-based bank reported a quarterly profit of $3.3 billion, or 74 cents a share, up 54% from compared with $2.1 billion, or 40 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts on average expected the bank to report a profit of 64 cents a share.
'While the economy still faces challenges, there have been clear and broad-based improvements in underlying trends,' said chief executive Jamie Dimon. 'Unfortunately, these good results were partially offset by high losses in the consumer credit portfolios,' he said.
The investment bank division reported a quarterly profit of $8.3 billion, down from $8.4 billion a year earlier. But JPMorgan's retail financial services unit reported a loss of $131m.
The bank put aside $3.7 billion for future losses, down $144m from the same quarter last year and down $496m from the fourth quarter.
Revenue rose 5% over the year to $28.2 billion.
