JPM — Q3 2026 Financial Report Analysis

JPMorgan Chase earned $15.3 billion ($5.57 per share) in the third quarter of 2026, up 6% from a year earlier. Excluding $658 million of losses from selling investment securities, which the bank calls a "significant item", it earned $15.8 billion ($5.75 per share). Revenue rose 8% to $50.2 billion, driven by an equities trading business that grew 49%, a 14% rise in investment banking fees and steady loan and deposit growth. Expenses grew faster than revenue, though (12% against 8%), and the bank cut share buybacks to about a sixth of Q2's level while its capital ratio kept slipping.

These figures come from the earnings release JPMorgan filed on October 13, 2026 (Form 8-K, Exhibits 99.1 and 99.2). The full 10-Q for the quarter has not been filed yet, so some detail, especially behind the movement in shareholders' equity, isn't available yet.

At a glance

• Earnings per share $5.57, up 10%: profit rose 6%. About 3 points of the EPS gain came from having 3% fewer shares outstanding, not from the business itself.
• Net interest income $27.0 billion, up 13%: more than half of the increase came from the trading desks. Excluding Markets, the steadier lending-and-deposits engine grew 6%.
• CET1 ratio 13.9%, down from 14.8% a year ago: loans grew 10% and use up capital, so the bank cut buybacks to $1.1 billion, from $6.7 billion in Q2.

Key figures

Some terms used in the table:

• Net interest income (NII): what the bank earns on loans and securities minus what it pays depositors and lenders. It is the largest single source of revenue.
• Net yield on interest-earning assets: JPMorgan's measure of net interest margin (NIM), meaning NII as a percentage of the assets that earn interest. JPMorgan reports it on a "managed" basis, a non-GAAP adjustment that grosses up tax-exempt income.
• Overhead ratio: expenses divided by revenue (other banks call it the efficiency ratio). Lower is better.
• ROTCE (return on tangible common equity): profit as a share of shareholders' equity after removing goodwill and other intangibles. It measures how hard each dollar of owners' capital is working.
• CET1 ratio: the bank's highest-quality capital as a share of its risk-weighted assets. Regulators set a floor, and anything above it is what a bank can spend on buybacks or growth.

Takeaway: JPMorgan is now spending its capital on balance-sheet growth instead of buybacks. Wholesale loans rose 16% in a year and gross repurchases fell from $8.3 billion to $1.1 billion, yet the CET1 ratio still slipped to 13.9%. With expenses also rising faster than revenue, EPS growth from here has to come from those new loans earning their keep, because the share-count tailwind is shrinking.

Where the revenue came from

(Segment revenue is on JPMorgan's managed basis.)

Commercial & Investment Bank. Markets (trading) revenue was $10.3 billion, up 15%, but the two halves moved in opposite directions. Equity Markets rose 49% to $5.0 billion, "particularly in Prime and Derivatives" (prime brokerage means lending to and clearing for hedge funds). Fixed Income Markets fell 4% to $5.4 billion, with lower revenue in Commodities, Rates, Credit and Public Finance, largely offset by Currencies & Emerging Markets. Investment banking fees rose 14% to $3.0 billion, "predominantly driven by higher advisory fees", and JPMorgan kept its #1 global ranking with a 9.2% fee share year to date. Payments revenue rose 14% to $5.6 billion on higher deposit balances, margin and fees. Lending revenue rose 20%, mainly because losses on the hedges of its loan book were smaller. CEO Jamie Dimon said client activity "did moderate somewhat during the quarter." Quarter on quarter, IB fees fell 8% and Markets & Securities Services revenue fell 14%.

Consumer & Community Banking. Card Services & Auto revenue grew 15% to $8.3 billion, on higher card balances, a higher net yield on card loans and more auto lease income. Banking & Wealth Management rose 6% to $11.7 billion. Home Lending fell 3% on lower mortgage production revenue. Card and debit spending rose 10%, and the bank added more than 650,000 net new checking accounts. The segment's net income rose 13%, helped by a $512 million lower provision for credit losses (the money set aside for expected loan losses): a $50 million reserve build this quarter, against $575 million a year ago.

Asset & Wealth Management. Revenue rose 14% on management fees from higher markets and inflows. Client assets reached $7.9 trillion (+15%), with $263 billion of net inflows in the quarter. Assets under management reached $5.2 trillion (+13%). Expenses also rose 14%, so profit grew a little more slowly, at 11%.

What the headline numbers hide

• The 13% NII growth is mostly trading-desk interest. On the managed basis, NII rose $3.07 billion. Markets NII alone went from $680 million to $2.42 billion, which is $1.74 billion or 57% of the increase. JPMorgan itself says Markets revenue should be judged as a total, because trading positions often earn interest on one line and lose it on another. NII excluding Markets grew 6% to $24.7 billion. The release attributes that growth to "higher deposit balances, higher balances in Card Services and higher wholesale loan balances, partially offset by the impact of lower rates." That 6% is the better gauge of the core business.
• One one-off and one partial offset. The $658 million of net investment-securities losses in Corporate ($498 million after tax, $0.18 per share) is the item management excludes. Dimon calls them "discretionary", meaning the bank chose to sell, and the release doesn't give the reason. The year-ago quarter had $105 million of securities gains, which flatters the comparison slightly in the other direction. Noninterest revenue outside Markets was also held back by "net losses on certain equity investments", which the release doesn't quantify. On the adjusted figures, EPS rose 13% ($5.75 against $5.07).
• Expenses are outgrowing revenue. Expenses rose 12.4% against 8.1% revenue growth. The bank cites "higher compensation, including higher revenue-related compensation and growth in the number of front office employees," plus brokerage, marketing and technology spending. Pre-provision profit (revenue minus expenses, before loan-loss charges) grew only 3% to $23.6 billion on a managed basis. Net income grew 6% because loan-loss provisions fell by $660 million.
• Lower credit costs helped, but reserves still went up. Net charge-offs (loans actually written off, net of recoveries) fell 15% to $2.2 billion, a 0.59% rate. That decline was "driven by Wholesale": the wholesale charge-off rate dropped to 0.11% from 0.33%. The retained credit-card charge-off rate fell to 2.90% from 3.15%. The bank still added $539 million to reserves, mostly in the CIB ($452 million), citing "net lending activity and changes in the credit quality of certain exposures." That second phrase is worth watching in the 10-Q.
• Buybacks and taxes. Diluted shares fell 3.1% year over year, to 2,683 million. That is why EPS (+9.9%) grew faster than net income (+6.3%). The tax rate did not help: it was 24.0%, against 23.2% a year ago.
• Equity fell during the quarter. Common stockholders' equity fell $2.2 billion from June 30 to $351.3 billion, and book value per share slipped from $133.01 to $132.30. That happened even though net income ($15.3 billion) far exceeded dividends ($4.4 billion) plus net buybacks ($0.7 billion). The release does not explain the gap. The 10-Q's equity statement should show whether it came from unrealized losses on securities (accumulated other comprehensive income) or something else. Year over year, book value per share is still up 6% and tangible book value per share up 7%.
• The quarter-on-quarter drop is not a collapse. Net income fell 28% from Q2's $21.2 billion, but Q2 included a $4.6 billion net gain on JPMorgan's Visa shares and $1.0 billion of other equity-investment gains, both in Corporate and CIB. Without those, the two quarters are much closer.

Did last time's read hold up?

Our Q2 2026 report expected lower profit after Q2 because the Visa gain would not recur and equities trading was "unlikely to stay this strong." The first part held. The second did not: equities revenue rose again, up 49% year over year. That report also named two things to watch in Q3.

• Consumer-bank costs outrunning revenue. This continued: CCB expenses rose 12% against 9% revenue growth year over year, citing marketing, technology and advisor pay. Quarter on quarter the two grew at the same 4%, so the gap did not widen further.
• Capital as the new $50 billion buyback began. CET1 fell again, to 13.9% from 14.2% at June 30. Management responded by cutting gross buybacks to $1.06 billion (3.1 million shares), from $6.7 billion in Q2. Dimon said that, "in line with our hierarchy, we reduced share repurchases this quarter."

Outlook

The October 13 release does not restate full-year guidance. In July, management guided to roughly $105.5 billion of 2026 NII ($96.5 billion excluding Markets), about $107.5 billion of adjusted expense and a Card Services net charge-off rate of about 3.2%. Against that guidance:

• NII: nine-month managed NII is $78.2 billion, which implies about $27.3 billion in Q4, close to Q3's $27.1 billion. Excluding Markets, the implied Q4 figure is about $24.8 billion against $24.7 billion in Q3. Both are on track.
• Expense: nine-month noninterest expense is $81.5 billion, which leaves about $26 billion for Q4 under the July figure. That is below Q3's $27.3 billion. The adjusted measure can differ slightly from reported expense, but either Q4 costs ease or the expense guide gets raised.
• Card losses: the Card Services net charge-off rate was 2.91% in Q3, below the 3.2% full-year guide.

The dividend was raised to $1.65 per share from $1.50. Dimon pointed to "large fiscal deficits, sticky inflation, elevated asset prices, rising interest rates and geopolitical conditions" as forces that "may be manageable", while saying the bank is "prepared for a wide range of outcomes."

Our view: The core business is growing at a steady mid-single-digit rate. NII excluding Markets rose 6%, average loans 10% and average deposits 8%. A 20% ROTCE (21% excluding the securities losses) remains high for a bank this size. The pace of EPS growth now depends on two things the quarter put under pressure: expense discipline and capital. With buybacks down 87% from a year ago, the share-count tailwind will fade over the next few quarters. Profit growth will then have to come from the new loans and from operating leverage, and this quarter showed none of the latter. In the 10-Q, watch three things: what drove the fall in equity, which exposures prompted the CIB reserve build, and whether the bank resumes buybacks if CET1 stabilizes.