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Wall Street Banks Set to Pull in Almost $39 Billion From Trading.

stock :: 4hrs ago :: source - bloomberg

By Misha Manjuran Oberoi and Georgie McKay

(Bloomberg) -- Wall Street's trading bonanza is poised to keep rolling.

The biggest US banks — set to kick off a marathon Tuesday with five of those firms reporting second-quarter earnings — are reaping the benefits of a volatile past few months that's spurred more action from clients wanting to trade. Analysts expect JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley to report nearly $39 billion in trading revenue for the second quarter.

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Stock traders across many of those firms are expected to pull in near record amounts of revenue, just short of the highs set during the first quarter. Goldman equities traders are on the cusp of setting another record in the second quarter, with that business on track to generate more than $5 billion of revenue.

Banks with exposure to Asian equity markets in particular, such as Morgan Stanley, will likely see a benefit from market swings in the period, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analysts led by Chris McGratty said in a note to clients.

"Bank stocks have rallied strongly and outperformed since mid-May as worries about the war ebbed, spending growth remains strong and markets are up sharply," JPMorgan analysts including Vivek Juneja said in a note to clients. Highlights of earnings will likely include "stronger-than-guided investment banking and trading revenues, and the outlook for these revenues should remain strong."

Investment Banking

One thing was clear in the second quarter: Investment bankers across Wall Street got their swagger back. By the middle of June, Goldman's bankers had already advised on more than $1 trillion of mergers and acquisitions for the year. That's the fastest any bank has ever reached the milestone.

That same month, Goldman and top rivals including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America took SpaceX public in the largest-ever public listing. While Elon Musk's company negotiated to pay razor-thin fees for the offering, it was still one of the biggest fee events ever on Wall Street.

Only days before the SpaceX deal, Goldman bankers were racing to pull together what was then one of the biggest equity offerings on record, helping Alphabet Inc. raise more than $80 billion to finance its overall artificial-intelligence spending and capitalize on the company's unique and growing position as a supplier of AI chips.

Morgan Stanley analysts led by Manan Gosalia said they "expect pipeline commentary to be positive, consistent with what we heard intra-quarter, setting up for continued strength" into the second half of the year and into 2027, according to a note.

Still, recent volatility in technology shares has spurred questions about other mega initial public offerings said to be in the pipeline. Shares of Morgan Stanley and Goldman dropped last month after news that OpenAI was weighing holding off on an IPO until next year.

Higher, Longer

With traders continuing to ramp up bets that the Federal Reserve is likely to keep interest rates higher for longer under new chairman Kevin Warsh, all eyes will be on how that feeds through to bank results.

On the one hand, higher rates buoy banks' bottom lines because they boost the amount of interest income they collect on loans. At the same time, higher rates put pressure on consumers' ability to repay their borrowings. That could force some lenders to set aside more money for potentially souring loans.

"You have to think a little bit more about peak margins as higher for longer becomes the base case for the banks," KBW's McGratty said in an interview.

Private Credit

The turmoil around private credit that dominated the first few months of the year has started to die down, but some funds are still grappling with redemption requests. McGratty noted that it's been "very quiet on that front" and that he'll be watching any related commentary closely.

Growth in lending to nonbank financial institutions slowed quarter-over-quarter, according to JPMorgan analysts, spurring questions about how much of that is attributable to private credit.

"We are waiting for earnings to see if this reflects a slowdown in growth in private-credit exposure," JPMorgan analysts said.

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