Mortgage bankers are reporting solid gains in profitability during the first quarter of 2012 without seeing any major increase in production volume compared to the end of last year. A new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports from eight of the largest bank-held mortgage operations shows a solid 22.5 percent increase in mortgage banking earnings compared to the fourth quarter. All eight companies reported net profits for early 2012, including two – JPMorgan Chase and PNC Financial – that posted losses in the previous quarter. The combined $6.50 billion in first-quarter mortgage banking earnings...