JPMorgan Q3 2026 Earnings: Why Net Interest Income Grew 13% or 6%

JPMorgan Q3 2026 earnings showed net interest income growing 13% from a year earlier, or 6% excluding Markets. Both percentages describe the quarter. The second removes the Markets business from the comparison; you need the reconciliation before treating either number as a measure of lending and deposit growth.

Data through: JPMorganChase's October 13, 2026 earnings release and financial supplement, covering the quarter ended September 30, 2026. Published and checked: October 17, 2026, America/Phoenix (MST, UTC−07:00). The SEC filing record confirms the release date. This article quotes no current share price or measured earnings-day return.

JPMorgan Q3 2026 earnings: reconcile the NII figures

JPMorgan reports net interest income, or NII, on several bases. Its financial supplement, page 28, supplies this bridge. Dollar figures below are in millions.

For this quarter, 27,036 + 109 − 2,419 = 24,726. Managed NII grew about 12.8%; NII excluding Markets grew about 5.7%. JPMorgan rounds those rates to 13% and 6%.

Markets NII increased by $1,739 million, accounting for about 57% of the $3,074 million increase in managed NII. That is a contribution to NII growth, not a share of the bank's profit.

Keep the comparison year visible. Comparing Q3 with the preceding quarter answers a different question from comparing Q3 with the same quarter a year earlier. Label your notes “Q3 2026 versus Q3 2025” before copying a growth rate.

What does net interest income measure?

A bank calculates NII by subtracting interest expense from interest income. Interest-earning assets include loans and securities; funding costs include interest the bank pays on deposits and borrowing. The St. Louis Fed's explanation of bank interest margins describes the components.

In a hypothetical bank, $60 of interest income minus $30 of interest expense leaves $30 of NII. Next year, interest income reaches $70 and interest expense reaches $35. NII rises to $35, an increase of 16.7%. The bank received more interest but also paid more for its funding.

NII comes before operating expenses, credit-loss provisions and taxes. You cannot use it as a substitute for net income or EPS. Nor does a 13% increase in the bank's NII mean that its shareholders earned a 13% return.

For JPMorgan's excluding-Markets increase, management cites higher deposit balances, Card Services balances and wholesale loan balances, partly offset by lower rates. The earnings release also reports net income of $15.3 billion and diluted EPS of $5.57. Read those profit measures alongside the revenue analysis.

Why exclude Markets, and why keep the reported number?

JPMorgan uses managed reporting to make taxable and tax-exempt revenue more comparable through taxable-equivalent adjustments. It classifies managed results and NII excluding Markets as non-GAAP measures. Markets includes its Fixed Income Markets and Equity Markets businesses.

Management examines the excluding-Markets measure to assess lending, investing and deposit-raising apart from Markets volatility. It also assesses Markets on total revenue because offsets can occur between NII and other revenue lines. The release's non-GAAP notes explain those choices and point to the reconciliation.

In your own comparison, retain the full label. “NII excluding Markets” does not mean net profit, and it does not remove expenses or credit losses from the rest of the bank. Avoid renaming it “ordinary banking profit” or “core earnings.” Those phrases would imply a different calculation.

If you compare JPMorgan with another bank, find that bank's definition before placing percentages side by side. Match the reporting period and accounting basis. A similar headline does not establish that two management teams made the same adjustments.

Net interest income vs net interest margin

NII measures dollars. Net interest margin relates NII to average interest-earning assets, with annualization for a period shorter than a year. The St. Louis Fed describes this relationship in its margin guide.

Suppose a hypothetical bank earns $3 of NII over a full year on $100 of average earning assets. Its margin is 3%. A year later, it earns $3.30 on $120 of average earning assets: NII grew 10%, but margin fell to 2.75%.

You would need both the income and the asset denominator to see that result. For a quarterly filing, use the issuer's annualization convention rather than dividing quarterly NII by assets and calling the result an annual margin. The example above uses full-year figures and is not another JPMorgan result.

Use the announcement date in a historical JPM comparison

The business quarter ended September 30. JPMorgan released the results on October 13. A price window ending in September cannot include the later announcement.

Open a JPM versus SPY comparison to inspect available historical closing-price paths. Record the actual dates and data-through label the app displays. A one-year view supplies broader context; it does not isolate the earnings announcement. SPY is a broad-market reference, not a bank-sector control or proof of what caused JPM to move.

The two-stock comparison guide explains how to keep dates and starting values consistent. To examine allocation exposure, build an illustrative portfolio and compare otherwise identical starting mixes with different JPM weights. Describe the result as the historical effect of the entered allocation. It does not score the earnings report or establish a suitable weight for your account.

Equity Replay applies weights once at the start of the shared historical window. Its close-price replay excludes dividends, fees, taxes, cash flows, trades and rebalancing; see the replay methodology and price return versus total return guide.

Equity Replay is an educational historical simulator, not investment advice, a broker or a record of trades. This article makes no forecast or personalized recommendation and gives no instruction to buy, hold, sell or rebalance a security.