Wall Street traders set records, driving U.S. bank results

The biggest trading desks are getting inundated by clients’ constant repositioning as the artificial intelligence boom shrugs off any note of caution. Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

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As artificial intelligence, war and the spectre of inflation drive investors’ exuberance and worries, Wall Street’s traders have cracked the code to come out on top every single time.

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Five of the biggest United States banks reported second-quarter results Tuesday with their divisions handling equities surpassing one record after another. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reeled in US$6 billion from stocks alone, a personal best, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. hauled in US$7.42 billion, a new industry high. Underscoring the trend, a 45 per cent jump at Citigroup Inc. was seen by shareholders as too shallow. On Wednesday, Morgan Stanley’s stock traders sailed past Wall Street’s expectations to set another quarterly record, taking in US$6.3 billion from equity trading, a 69 per cent jump that bested its previous all-time high from the first quarter, according to a statement from the company.

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The biggest trading desks are getting inundated by clients’ constant repositioning as the artificial intelligence boom shrugs off any note of caution. Even as the U.S. military wades deeper into a war on Iran and rising affordability concerns pinch Main Street, Wall Street’s equities desks keep coming out as winners.

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“The markets are booming right now,” JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon said after posting record numbers. “It’s getting as close to as good as it gets. We just don’t know how long it’s going to last.”

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Traders work on the floor of the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Friday, June 5, 2026. Photo by Michael Nagle/Bloomberg

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One startling stat: Goldman’s equities business pulled in more money in the past three months than it managed in all of 2019. Since then, the worst inflation in 50 years, a once-in-a-century pandemic, a norm-shattering president and a revolutionary new technology has upended markets and reset expectations for trading following a decade-long lull.

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When President Donald Trump swept into office last year, the record for equities total trading revenue generated by the six largest U.S. banks stood at US$13.5 billion. They have surpassed that in each of the six quarters of his second term.

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That has been aided by wide-open capital markets, as sovereign funds and mom-and-pop investors gorge on new equity offerings, capped off by the record listing for SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) — the tweets-to-rockets empire that made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

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That combined with a resurgent market for mergers has meant that the banks’ broader Wall Street operations have kicked into high gear.

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Elon Musk during the company’s initial public offering at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York on June 12.

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Quarterly results were accompanied by a jump in costs as banks race to keep pace with ballooning investments and the need to set aside more money to pay their top talent. Expenses at Bank of America Corp. rose more than expected. JPMorgan bumped up its full-year expectations for expenses, forcing investors to calibrate how much of its soaring revenue will reach the bottom line.

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JPMorgan said that it is cautioning employees to be strategic about their AI use, urging them to swap the latest cutting-edge model for a less expensive one to handle a simple task such as summarizing a report. For now, token spend at the bank was a “trivial” figure in the first half of the year, chief financial officer Jeremy Barnum said.