Record low volatility across equity and debt markets could ease next year, boosting Wall Street firms’ trading operations, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake said.

The unusually calm markets and low client activity that caused the worst first half in trading since the financial crisis will probably continue through the middle of 2015, Lake said Tuesday at a conference in New York.

“It may be a tale of two cities where the first half looks a little bit more like a continuation of some the things we’d been seeing this year, but there may be greener pastures in the second half,” Lake said. “When things change, they can change very, very quickly, so we want to be positioned for that.”

JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank, run by Daniel Pinto, posted a 12 percent revenue drop to $17.6 billion in the first six months of 2014. Firms may have to wait until 2016 before markets significantly improve, Pinto said in May.

JPMorgan will benefit from cost-cutting programs in retail and institutional units and “more finality” on rules governing capital at the biggest banks, Lake said.