AlHijjah 20, 1435, Oct 14, 2014, SPA -- Three of the biggest U.S. banks posted third-quarter profits Tuesday, as business conditions improved. J.P. Morgan Chase & Company reported quarterly profit as the biggest U.S. bank increased revenue from trading and investment banking and moved past the huge legal claims that pushed it into a rare quarterly loss in the third quarter of 2013. J.P. Morgan said it recorded net profit of $5.6 billion in the July-September quarter, compared with a loss of $380 million a year earlier. The result was slightly below Wall Street expectations. Citigroup on Tuesday reported a 13 percent rise in quarterly profit, helped by better results from its portfolio of troubled assets remaining from the financial crisis. Profit rose to $3.67 billion from $3.26 billion in the same period a year earlier, beating Wall Street estimates. The third-biggest U.S. bank said it would exit consumer banking in 11 more markets, as the most international of the big U.S. banks seeks to shrink its way to better profits. The company said it would exit operations in six Latin American countries as well as Japan, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Egypt, and Guam. Wells Fargo & Company, the fourth-largest U.S. bank and the biggest mortgage lender, reported a 1.7 percent rise in quarterly profit Tuesday as its mortgage business stabilized. Third-quarter profit rose to $5.41 billion from $5.32 billion a year ago. The profit figure was in line with Wall Street expectations. Mortgage lending rose by $1 billion from the second quarter to $48 billion, though new home loans were 40 percent below the level in the third quarter of 2013. A drop in refinancing activity starting in the summer of 2013 caused mortgage banking income to plunge for four consecutive quarters.
