JP Morgan Chase offices JP Morgan Chase was the first big US bank to report third quarter results
US banking giant JP Morgan Chase saw profits between July and September that were much better than expected.
The second-biggest US bank made a net income of $3.6bn (£2.5bn), compared with $527m in the same period of 2008.
Strong performance in its investment banking division cancelled out losses on credit cards and consumer loans.
The news helped boost stock markets. The Dow Jones closed at 10,015.86 - its highest level for a year - while European markets also rose.
London's FTSE 100, France's Cac 40 index and Germany's Dax all saw gains of about 2%.
Banking stocks were among the top risers, with Barclays up 6.6%, Societe Generale climbing 4.7% and Deutsche Bank adding 4.2%.
JP Morgan Chase is the first big US bank to report third quarter results, with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup on Thursday and Bank of America on Friday.
JP Morgan's boss warned that the cost of credit was likely to remain high "for the foreseeable future".
"Accordingly, we have added $2bn to our consumer credit reserves, bringing the firmwide total to $31.5bn," said Jamie Dimon, the bank's chairman and chief executive in its results statement.
'Stellar'
The consumer lending business posted a net loss of $1bn, up from $659m in the same period of last year.
Card services made a net loss of $700m, which was an improvement on the $992m lost in the third quarter of 2008.
However the investment banking business made net income of $1.9bn, up from $1bn in the third quarter of 2008.
"This is off-the-charts performance. This is stellar," said Michael Holland, president of the fund managers Holland & Co in New York.
"I don't think you can infer from this that the financial sector is home free at this point. To the contrary, it shows one thing: JP Morgan has performed brilliantly."
Rescue funds
JP Morgan said it had also benefited from the impact of buying most of the assets of Washington Mutual, which it acquired in September 2008 after it had been seized by regulators.
The bank repaid its $25bn of US government rescue funds in June.
Later in the week, Goldman Sachs is expected to announce hefty profits while Bank of America and Citigroup are both expected to post losses.
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