JPMorgan’s fourth-quarter earnings reported Tuesday morning dropped 7.3 percent as the bank grappled with weak results from its investment-banking unit, but results beat expectations.
The bank led by Jamie Dimon reported a profit of $5.28 billion, or $1.30 a share, versus a profit of $5.69 billion, or $1.39 a share, a year earlier.
The latest figures included 27 cents a share in legal costs, among other one-time items.
Excluding one-time items, per-share earnings were $1.40. Revenue dropped 1.1 percent to $24.11 billion. Analysts had expected a per-share profit of $1.35 on revenue of $23.67 billion.
JPMorgan’s investment-banking profit slumped 57 percent to $858 million as the unit was hit by a $1.5 billion loss from a funding valuation adjustment for over-the-counter derivatives and structured notes. Excluding accounting adjustments, the profit was down 11%.
JPMorgan continues to attract regulatory and legal scrutiny than many of its peers. In the past year the bank agreed to roughly $20 billion in payouts resolving probes of everything from alleged misrepresentations made during past mortgage bond sales to the 2012 “London whale” trading debacle.
Last week, JPMorgan announced an additional $2.6 billion in payments to settle allegations it failed to properly monitor convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. That forced the bank to bump up its legal reserves and reduce fourth quarter earnings by $850 million.
For Dimon recent quarters have brought increasing focus to the question of how he and the bank’s board can win back regulators. Dimon has previously warned that legal costs could remain volatile for several quarters.
For the quarter, JPMorgan’s litigation expense was $800 million, versus the $1.2 billion reported a year earlier and $9.15 billion reported in the third quarter.
This article originally appeared on MarketWatch.com.