The banking giant said its investment banking and asset management businesses continued to profit from the 10-month market rally, allowing it to more than overcome the losses from consumers’ continuing defaults on a variety of loans. JPMorgan Chase earned $702 million a year earlier when the near-collapse of the mortgage banking business forced it to write down the value of billions of dollars in loans.
But over the past year, record-low interest rates have allowed banking companies to profit when lending money at higher rates. And the boom in the financial markets have brought in billions of dollars in trading and underwriting revenue that was decimated a year earlier by the stock market crash.
The market rally allowed JPMorgan to give big bonuses to its employees for 2009. The company said its total pay costs, including salaries, bonuses and benefits, rose 18 percent in 2009, although the company cut its work force by 1 percent during the year. The average compensation per employee rose to $121,124 in 2009 from $101,110 a year earlier.
