JPMorgan’s 4th-Quarter Profit Weathers $2.4 Billion Charge Tied to Tax Bill

JPMorgan Chase announced fourth-quarter earnings Friday that beat analysts’ estimates and kept the financial services company profitable despite a $2.4 billion charge related to the recently approved tax bill.

But revenue from the banking giant’s trading business fell, signaling Wall Street’s overall sluggishness in the midst of tighter regulations and placid global markets.

JPMorgan and Wells Fargo, which also reported earnings Friday, were the first of the biggest banks in the United States to detail how the changes to the tax code are affecting them. The law lowered the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, but also forced companies holding cash overseas to repatriate it and take one-time charges for doing so.

Although several companies have warned publicly that those charges would be in the billions of dollars, most stand to gain significantly in the long run from the tax bill.

JPMorgan said it earned $4.2 billion in the quarter after accounting for the tax charge, compared with $6.7 billion in the same period a year earlier; full-year net income was $24.4 billion, compared with $24.7 billion in 2016. The one-time charge was slightly higher than the company’s chief financial officer, Marianne Lake, estimated last month that it would be.

Earnings per share were $1.07. Leaving aside the tax charge, they were $1.76. Analysts had expected $1.69 in per-share earnings before accounting for the impact of the tax overhaul.

Net income from consumer banking rose in the quarter compared with the same period a year ago, but net income from corporate and investment banking fell 32 percent. Fixed-income markets experienced the biggest drop compared with last’s year’s fourth quarter, and income from equities markets was flat.

The company said it had maintained its ranking as the largest recipient of global investment banking fees.

Wells Fargo said its one-time charge related to the repatriation of funds from overseas was $173 million. It earned $6.2 billion in the fourth quarter and said the new law had provided an overall after-tax benefit of $3.35 billion.

Goldman Sachs, which is to report its fourth-quarter earnings Jan. 17, said last month that it expected to take a $5 billion charge.