Back to top

Image: Bigstock

3 Key Takeaways From JPM's Q1 Earnings

Read MoreHide Full Article

Thursday marked the first wave of the big banks’ quarterly earnings. Wells Fargo (WFC - Free Report) , Citigroup (C - Free Report) and J.P. Morgan (JPM - Free Report) all reported their earnings today. Among them, JPM is clearly leading the pack with its solid first quarter earnings.

J.P. Morgan reported earnings of $1.65 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.51 per share. Revenues, however, fell short of expectations coming in at $24.67 billion.

However, a company’s earnings report is much more than just these numbers, especially from one of the giants of the banking industry.

Here are three key takeaways from J.P. Morgan’s Q1 earnings:

Mobile Banking

The company reported having a 14% growth of active mobile users to 27.3 million.

Just like almost all the other industry, banking has adopted mobile options to keep up with the demand of today’s highly mobile digital society. Having a mobile banking app that works reliably and simply is more important ever as the number of consumers using mobile apps as the number is climbing fast.

The use of mobile banking is projected to reach 25% of the global population by 2019, according to research by KPMG and UBS. Furthermore, the PEW Charitable Trusts found in a study that 46% of the U.S. population uses mobile payment app to shop, pay bills and send or receive money.

Having a reliable mobile app not only makes depositing checks easy and quick, but it also creates customer loyalty, according to a report by Bain.

Consumer Business is growing

“U.S. consumers and business are healthy overall, and with pro-growth initiatives and improving collaborations between government and business, the U.S. economy can continue to improve,” said J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon.

The numbers are there to back up Dimon’s statement. In the first-quarter, the company had $622.9 billion in deposits, increased 11% year-over-year. Also, the net revenue of J.P. Morgan’s Consumer & Business Bank division was $4.9 billion, up 8% from a year ago.

Interest Rates Hike

Shares of big banks have been among investors’ favorites following the election thanks to President Trump’s promise of a new approach to bank regulation; however, it has yet to happen. Instead of this policy change, the recent interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve could actually help J.P. Morgan’s long-term profitability.

Net interest income grew 6% to $12.4 billion compared to the same period a year ago. The New York bank expects it to be up about $400 million for the second quarter 2017 and up to $4.5 billion for fiscal 2017.

Bottom Line

The bank gave us a good start to the Q1 reporting season for the banking sector. The earnings report showed solid performance by J.P. Morgan and moreover, how the U.S. economy is doing and consumers’ needs. Investors should still pay attention to policy and interest rate changes in the near future.

J.P. Morgan is down 0.44% to $85.02 per share.

Zacks’ Best Private Investment Ideas

While we are happy to share many articles like this on the website, our best recommendations and most in-depth research are not available to the public. Starting today, for the next month, you can follow all Zacks' private buys and sells in real time. Our experts cover all kinds of trades… from value to momentum . . . from stocks under $10 to ETF and option moves . . . from stocks that corporate insiders are buying up to companies that are about to report positive earnings surprises. You can even look inside exclusive portfolios that are normally closed to new investors. Click here for Zacks' private trades >>


See More Zacks Research for These Tickers


Normally $25 each - click below to receive one report FREE:


Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) - free report >>

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) - free report >>

Citigroup Inc. (C) - free report >>