JPMorgan Chase led a stream of giant US lenders that reported higher profits behind strength in financial markets and investment banking as executives said consumers were holding up in spite of inflation concerns.
JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said the US economy has “demonstrated notable resiliency” so far in 2026, noting that higher oil prices due to the US-Iran war had not significantly damaged activity.
Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo all reported higher profits in the unofficial kick-off to second-quarter earnings season.
While shares of these banks finished mixed, the Dow eked out a modest gain while the other two major US indices advanced. The market was led by the tech-dominated Nasdaq, which had led the losses on Monday as oil prices shot higher due to the latest flare up in the Middle East.
Oil prices rose again on Tuesday, but gains moderated after US President Donald Trump backed down on a threat to heavily tax ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Market watchers also greeted US consumer price data that showed a sharper than expected drop in pricing pressure.
The consumer price index rose by 3.5 percent on a year-on-year basis in June, down from a 4.2 percent increase in May.
The figure marked a pull-back from a three-year high, as a drop in energy costs more than offset upticks in housing and food.
Analysts had anticipated a larger 3.8 percent CPI uptick, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
“This was the largest moderation in US price growth for six years and it drastically reduces the chance of a rate cut at this month’s (Federal Reserve’s monetary policy committee) meeting,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB trading platform.
But newly installed Fed Chair Kevin Warsh indicated on Tuesday that it was still too early to celebrate.
“There might be some that look at this morning’s data and say, ‘Oh, mission accomplished! Everything is swell,'” Warsh said at a US House Financial Services Committee hearing. “That is not my view.”
He told lawmakers that US Federal Reserve officials have “no tolerance” for stubbornly high prices and vowed to rid the United States of a years-long “inflation surge.”
But the US dollar fell against the euro and other major currencies as futures markets showed fewer traders now expect a rate hike at the Fed’s July 29 meeting.
Earlier, European bourses avoided major moves, while Asian stocks mostly climbed after tech firms enjoyed some reprieve from the latest bout of selling.
Among individual companies, IBM slumped more than 25 percent after the US tech giant released disappointing preliminary second-quarter results, blaming a shift in spending by customers due to expected higher prices for memory chips and other AI-related infrastructure.
“We did not adapt and move quickly enough,” IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a letter to investors.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4 percent, to 7,543, the Nasdaq rose 0.9 percent, to 26,107, while the Dow rose less than 0.1 percent, to 52,508. (AFP)
