J.P. Morgan Earnings Came With a Few Caveats

On the conference call later in the morning, the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, said he plans to resume a full schedule, including travel outside the United States, following two months of treatment for throat cancer. He said he is currently building up to full schedule.

The bank’s chief financial officer noted that a sequential rise in legal expenses of $400 million includes an estimate for J.P. Morgan’s expenses in a possible settlement of a U.K. investigation into the bank’s role in price-rigging in the foreign exchange markets. An investigation into currency manipulation in the United States is also continuing.

Dimon also responded to a question about the impact of the new Apple Pay system that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) plans to roll out this month. Dimon said he is not afraid of cannibalization and disruption to the bank’s business as long as the new system makes it easier for customers to do business with the bank and J.P. Morgan gains market share. Dimon is willing to lose margin elsewhere in order to build what he sees as a better idea.

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Last year the company reported an EPS loss of $0.17 on revenue of $23.12 billion in the third quarter due to one-time charges of $9.2 billion for one-time legal expenses. Diluted EPS this year came in slightly below estimates and were hampered by $1.1 billion in legal expenses.

Sequentially both revenues and profits were down, 1% and 7% respectively. For the year to date, revenues are down 2% compared with the same period a year ago, and net income is up 33%, primarily due to a 16% reduction in non-interest expenses.

The bank did not offer guidance in its press release, but the consensus estimates call for fourth-quarter EPS of $1.41 on revenues of $24.29 billion. The EPS estimate for the 2014 fiscal year is now $5.53, up $0.24 a share from the estimate at the end of the second quarter.

Shares were down about 0.9% in late morning trading to $57.61. The current 52-week range is $51.30 to $61.85. More than 9.5 million shares had traded, compared with a daily average for the whole day of about 13.4 million shares traded. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $67.50 before the results were announced.

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