Shares endured a wild journey within the second quarter. It was nice information for large banks.
The second quarter of 2025 was a good time to be a inventory dealer at one of many nation’s main banks.
The equities buying and selling desks of all 5 of the “bulge bracket” banks — JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Citigroup (C), and Financial institution of America (BAC) — posted double-digit development in comparison with the second quarter of 2024 as merchants reveled within the whipsaw volatility sparked by Trump’s commerce combat that escalated in April.
At Goldman Sachs, $4.3 billion value of enterprise for its buying and selling group was sufficient to break the Wall Road report for inventory buying and selling revenues in a single quarter. This marked a 36% soar from the identical quarter final 12 months.
Morgan Stanley attributed its 23% rise in internet equities revenues partially to “greater shopper exercise,” whereas Financial institution of America put its 10% development right down to efficiency and “elevated shopper exercise.”
On Citi’s Tuesday earnings name, financial institution CEO Jane Fraser stated, “In markets, investments in our buying and selling platforms have allowed us to deal with report volumes with ease.”
The fortunes of funding banks’ equities desks, which purchase and promote shares or stock-related merchandise for the financial institution’s shoppers, are sometimes tied to volatility relatively than whether or not shares are going up or down.
Between President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, the following tariff rollbacks and rollouts, the Israel-Iran battle, and myriad different market-moving occasions, the S&P 500 recorded a few of its greatest one- and two-day swings on report through the quarter.
Learn extra: What Trump’s tariffs imply for the financial system and your pockets
The CBOE Volatility Index (^VIX), a measure of implied market volatility sometimes called the “concern gauge,” hit its highest ranges because the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic in April. The VIX has since traded again to ranges that prevailed earlier than “Liberation Day” uncertainty shook shares.
Requested on JPMorgan’s Tuesday earnings name how a lot of the financial institution’s buying and selling efficiency may very well be chalked as much as a powerful and conducive setting, CEO Jamie Dimon stated, “I used to be not shocked” by the market circumstances.
Robinhood (HOOD) inventory has additionally surged in current months, rising greater than 160% in 2025, because the retail buying and selling large has benefited from these risky market circumstances together with the Trump administration’s embrace of the crypto business, a key supply of enterprise for the platform. Robinhood is about to report earnings after the market shut on July 30.
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