An uptick in trad­ing and deal­mak­ing lift­ed JP­Mor­gan Chase and Com­pa­ny's first-quar­ter prof­its out of the funk of late 2011, but the re­cov­ery fell short of the good times the largest Unit­ed States bank en­joyed a year ago. The re­sults beat Wall Street ex­pec­ta­tions. In­vest­ment bank­ing rev­enue re­bound­ed from the 2011fourth quar­ter as fears about the Eu­ro­pean debt cri­sis eased, prompt­ing more com­pa­nies and in­vestors to re­turn to fixed-in­come and eq­ui­ty mar­kets.

JP­Mor­gan al­so got a boost from im­prove­ments in cred­it qual­i­ty and loan de­mand-a trend seen in the per­for­mance of Wells Far­go and Com­pa­ny as well. The num­ber four US bank sep­a­rate­ly re­port­ed high­er first-quar­ter prof­it as mort­gage bank­ing im­proved and it set aside less mon­ey for bad loans.

"The rev­enue is what re­al­ly im­pressed me," said Joe Ter­ril, founder of Ter­ril and Com­pa­ny, a mon­ey man­ag­er in St Louis, Mis­souri, re­fer­ring to a 24 per cent jump in JP­Mor­gan's to­tal rev­enue from the fourth quar­ter.

Reuters