So how tough is the earnings environment in the third quarter? James Staley, CEO of JP Morgan's investment bank, took the stage at the Barclays conference and offered a preview.

According to Bloomberg, he told the audience that trading revenue will be down on a sequential basis about 30 percent. The bank generated income of about $5.5 billion in the second quarter from equity, fixed income sales and trading. Investment banking fees will fall by about half. In total, the bank will likely earn about $1 billion from these activities, down from $1.9 billion in the previous quarter.

This is hardly unexpected. Analysts have been busy paring their third quarter estimates. Profit estimates from sell-side analysts over the last month have fallen nearly 20 percent for Goldman Sachs, and about 10 percent for Bank of America. We still have a ways to go, however, in the third quarter. If the rest of September and October isn't as bad as expected, we could see some upside surprises. Trading volume has kicked up a bit, so that might help. Some of the volume boost came in low margin markets, however, such as the cash equity and Treasury markets.

For more:
- here's the article
- here's a Reuters article on third quarter earnings

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Commodities: JP Morgan gaining on Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley