US banks gain from rally in toxic assets

US banks such as Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase have earned billions of dollars from their "toxic" portfolios in the past three months as a rally in some of these distressed assets enabled them to book accounting gains or sell them.

Bankers say the gains revealed by Citi and JPMorgan in last week's third- quarter results bode well for other banks, after the sector suffered more than $1,000bn in writedowns globally on troubled assets such as mortgage-backed securities, as a result of the crisis.