JPMorgan’s 2025 ended with somewhat less than a bang. The world’s most valuable bank reported a 7 per cent year-on-year fall in earnings in the fourth quarter and expects costs to rise dramatically this year. But everything is relative. Short-term performance matters much less than the long-term potential damage from reckless political meddling.
Despite the underwhelming headlines, JPMorgan is still growing in most of the places shareholders would like. Net interest income — the difference between what it earns in interest and pays to its own funders — increased 7 per cent year on year, and forecasts for interest in 2026 beat expectations. Trading revenues hit $8.2bn, rounding out a record year.
Slip-ups, such as they were, barely blotted the copybook of a bank whose share price has doubled in two years. Dealmaking fees may have fallen 5 per cent, for example, but capital markets are still booming overall. Investment banking revenue for the whole of 2025 was almost one-third bigger than 2019, before the gyrations of Covid.