JPMorgan announced as biggest US bank on almost every measure

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JPMorgan Chase captured almost a fifth of all US bank profits in the first nine months of 2023, capitalising on a year of turmoil for the country’s financial sector.

JPMorgan’s US banking subsidiary earned $38.9bn in profits — about 18 per cent of the industry’s total — according to FT calculations based on figures from industry tracker BankRegData. Its earnings for the period exceeded those of Big Four rivals Bank of America and Citigroup combined.

The figures show how the bank’s chief executive Jamie Dimon has taken advantage of acquisition opportunities — such as with the rescue of First Republic this May — and of errors by rivals to establish JPMorgan as the largest US bank by almost every measure.

“JPMorgan is the Goliath of Goliaths,” said Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo.

Our reporter Joshua Franklin explains just why the Wall Street lender has been so successful.

Four more top stories

1. Exclusive: The EU is preparing a back-up plan worth up to €20bn for Ukraine after the bloc’s leaders failed to agree a €50bn four-year package for the war-torn country earlier this month. The scheme sidesteps objections from Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Here’s what EU leaders need to make the plan a success.

2. Israel begins ground combat operations in central Gaza Strip. “Israel Defense Forces are fighting in the southern Gaza Strip in the area of Khan Younis, and we have expanded the combat to the area known as the Central Camps,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a briefing late yesterday.

3. Big Tech has vastly outspent venture capital groups with investments in generative artificial intelligence start-ups this year.
The huge outlay, which exploded after the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022, highlights how the biggest Silicon Valley groups are crowding out traditional tech investors for the biggest deals in the industry. Here’s what this means for the much-hyped sector.

• Apple: The tech giant has been banned from selling the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 in the US after the White House refused to grant a reprieve from a trade tribunal’s ruling over patent infringement.

4. Global production for Toyota has reached an all-time annual high. Vindicating a strategy often criticised for not putting enough emphasis on selling pure electric vehicles, the Japanese company saw robust demand in its core market, including the US and Europe. It is now on track to be the top-selling global carmaker for a fourth straight year.

We’re also reading . . . 

The most-commented stories of 2023

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pieces that most engaged the FT’s readers in debate this year were about the war in Ukraine. One story, which drew more than 2,200 comments, came at a critical point of the war in January, when we reported that Germany was resisting pressure from other western allies to send its Leopard 2 battle tanks to aid Kyiv in its counteroffensive against Russia (Berlin later relented).

In August, the demise of the rebellious Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had led his notorious Wagner paramilitary group in a failed mutiny against Moscow, also attracted vigorous discussion and speculation: was this an act of retribution from Vladimir Putin?

Additional contributions from Tee Zhuo and Emily Goldberg