Jes Staley, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s investment bank, told CNBC that equities activity in the first quarter was “still lighter than we’d like to see it.”

Asked about the trading environment in the quarter, particularly in equities, Staley said it’s “down about 20 percent” from a year ago. “Fixed-income is a little bit higher,” he said in the interview today.

Staley’s remarks referred to data provided by Dealogic on “equity capital markets issuance, not trading volumes” for the entire industry, Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokeswoman for New York-based JPMorgan, said in an e-mail.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net.