Companywide, total revenue excluding accounting adjustments fell less than 1 percent over the prior year to $17.8 billion, missing the $18.6 billion estimate of 18 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The impact of converting foreign currency to U.S. dollars reduced sales by $458 million, according to a presentation on the company’s website.

Citigroup boosted the quarter’s results by taking $441 million out of reserves for loan losses. The bank now has $16 billion in reserve, or 2.5 percent of total loans outstanding.

JPMorgan’s trading results and higher-than-estimated costs spurred analysts to ask CEO Jamie Dimon whether the firm could unlock shareholder value by splitting in pieces, potentially blunting the impact of stiffer capital rules for big banks.

?JPMorgan benefits from its size and diversity, which helped it weather the financial crisis without a quarterly loss, Dimon said. The stock fell the most in three months.

Eoin Treacy's view

Trading desks do best when volatility is high but prices are confined to trading ranges. The outsized moves across asset classes as well as the strength of the US dollar have been obstacles to the profitability of globally oriented investment banks but that does not explain the weakness of the sector more generally. Not one of the constituents of the S&P500 Banks, Diversified Financials, Investment, Commercial, Retail and Regional banking sectors are in positive territory this year.

There has been a great deal of commentary about the impact the falling price of crude oil would have on the drilling and exploration sectors and the high proportion of capex the sector has been responsible for. It is also worth considering that the expenditure on expansion, plant, machinery, materials and infrastructure was achieved by borrowing the money from the banking sector. If oil companies run into problems that also represents an issue for banks. 
More broadly, if the banks are forced to retrench and withhold credit in an attempt to bolster balance sheets, the impact on the wider economy could be troublesome. The S&P500 Banks have been performing more or less in line with the wider market for the last three year but broke downwards this week. 

The continued contraction of the yield on 10-year Treasuries is an additional indication that the complacency of stock market investors may be questioned in the near term.