NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s biggest banks posted another quarter of strong profits, helped by a resilient economy and a flurry of dealmaking for their investment banking units.
But the strong profits were clouded by the bank’s outlook for 2026, as bank executives warned how high oil prices were starting to negatively impact the consumer and further geopolitical uncertainty could hamper economic growth as the year progresses.
“There is an increasingly complex set of risks,” Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, said in a statement, referencing to wars, energy prices and trade wars as some of the current risks in the global economy.
Dimon further called these tensions as “significant and they reinforce why we prepare the firm for a wide range of environments.”
This quarter, it was the investment banks at all of the major banks that drove revenue to Wall Street during the first three months of the year. JPMorgan reported a 30% jump in investment banking fees, while Citigroup reported a 12% rise in advisory fees.
The rise in markets and investment banking fees was not a surprise. Markets have been intensely volatile in the first three months of the year, and those swings of volatility are great for the professional trading desks stationed at all the major banks. Further, many companies are pursuing mergers, acquisitions or going public, which has provided another stream of revenue for Wall Street.
However, bank executives warned that the extreme swings could have downstream impacts to the U.S. economy, particularly energy prices. In a call with reporters, Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Mike Santomassimo said the bank was seeing customers allocating a larger percentage of their debit card spending toward gas and cutting back on discretionary purchases.
While Dimon described the economy was “resilient” he also said, “the impact of higher oil prices will likely take some time to materialize” in the economy if it lingers.
JPMorgan posted a profit of $16.49 billion, up 13% from a year earlier. On a per-share basis, the bank earned $5.94. Wells Fargo earned a profit of $5.25 billion and Citigroup had a profit of $5.79 billion.
