JPM

JPM posted its Q2 results this morning, and the headline is hard to argue with: 16.9 billion dollars in net income, revenue up 15 percent year over year. Strong print. The catch? Expenses climbed 15 percent too, which means the efficiency ratio — the banker's metric for how many cents it costs to generate a dollar of revenue — held flat instead of improving. That's not a crisis, but it's the marginal disappointment in an otherwise robust quarter. JPM also raised its dividend, a move that reflects confidence in the capital stack. Meanwhile, the broader sector split wide open: Citi dropped on its own results while Goldman hit a fresh all-time high. JPM's numbers are objectively good. The question now is whether flat operating leverage is the ceiling or just a temporary detour.