JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM): One CEO Quote Every Investor Needs to Read

For JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) specifically, meeting the new capital requirements — should they be officially put in place — will be a must. But these are capital requirements that chief rivals Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C), and Goldman Sachs will also have to meet. For investors to succeed with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) — or conversely, with any of those other banks — they need to look beyond that and be convinced that there’s something that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) is doing to set itself apart from the others so that it can attract more deposits, loyal clients, top-flight employees, investment assets, and so on.

In short, a company needs to have a strategy for delivering services that customers will value, and it needs to execute on that strategy. Without that, management can nail the accounting all day long, but the business would be a mess of uninvestable mediocrity.

Bruce Lee said: “It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”

For investors, numbers and accounting details can help point the way. But in the end, we need to be careful to remember that we’re investors in operating businesses, not static ledgers.

The article 1 CEO Quote Every Investor Needs to Read originally appeared on Fool.com and is written  by Matt Koppenheffer.

Matt Koppenheffer owns shares of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM). The Motley Fool recommends Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool owns shares of Bank of America, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Wells Fargo.

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