JPMorgan kicked off the first-quarter earnings season for Wall Street banks with a surge in trading revenues of more than a third — but this failed to stop a steep fall in profits across its vast investment bank. 

The US bank posted net profits of $2.9bn for the first quarter of 2020, a 69% year-on-year drop driven by a huge, multibillion-dollar provision for potential losses on loans to companies struggling amid the global coronavirus crisis. Revenues of around $29bn were down 3%.