JPMorgan Chase narrowly avoided a loss in the fourth quarter, indicating that it is weathering the financial crisis better than some of the other big US banks. The bank on Thursday reported a profit of $702 million, or 7 cents per share, down 76 percent from $2.97 billion, or 86 cents per share, a year ago. The meager profit was driven by its acquisition of Washington Mutual Inc., and the bank added $4.1 billion to loan loss reserves - proving that it is not immune to the deepening global recession. JPMorgan said Thursday that it extended more than $100 billion in new credit to individuals, businesses, municipalities and nonprofit organizations. During the fourth quarter, JPMorgan's investment bank posted a loss of $2.4 billion, after a profit of $124 million a year ago. Card services also reported a loss of $371 million, after a profit of $609 million a year ago, as more cardholders failed to make their payments. The retail financial services segment reported a 15 percent drop in profit to $624 million, due to losses in consumer lending. Income from asset management fell to $255 million from $527 million, while income from the corporate and private equity business rose to $1.5 billion from $270 million. The commercial banking unit reported a record profit of $480 million, up from $288 million a year ago. Treasury and securities services also posted a record profit, of $533 million, up from $422 million. For all of 2008, JPMorgan Chase posted a profit of $5.6 billion, or $1.37 a share. That was down from a record annual profit in 2007 of $15.4 billion, or $4.38 a share. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon called the quarter “very disappointing.” He said results were hurt by $2.9 billion in markdowns in JPMorgan's investment bank on leveraged loans and mortgage trading positions, as well as deterioration in all types of loans.
