Banks

JPMorgan's CFO: Trading is down 15 percent amid markets that haven't been 'that exciting'

Key Points
  • Volatility low across the spectrum, the CFO of JPM said during a presentation on Tuesday.
  • The reverse trend is true in investment banking, where activity is adding up to a high single-digit bounce so far this quarter compared to the same time last year.
Marianne Lake, chief financial officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Jin Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The trading environment is decidedly less exciting than it was during last year's post-election rally, as JPMorgan Chase's chief financial officer points out.

Revenue from sales and trading at the bank is running 15 percent lower so far in the fourth quarter compared to this point in the same period last year, Marianne Lake told an audience at the Goldman Sachs financial services conference on Tuesday.

"The volatility remains pretty low across the spectrum," she said in response to a question about the trading business. It "hasn't been that exciting." Markets revenue in JPMorgan's investment bank for the full fourth quarter of 2016 was $5.7 billion.

The reverse trend is true of investment banking, she noted, where activity levels have been high, "up high single-digits."

JPMorgan Chase is mulling how to assist customers who want to trade bitcoin futures, which is something being rolled out in the coming weeks at CBOE, CME and, ultimately, Nasdaq. The largest U.S. bank's CEO, Jamie Dimon, has publicly derided bitcoin as a "fraud" but Lake's public comments have been more measured.

The firm, she said earlier this year, is "open-minded" to the potential uses of the digital currency.