Wall Street banks said to post Q2 trading boost, advisory revenue to fall

Trading is poised to lift the U.S.’s biggest banks in Q2 2025, as investment banking income is expected to keep lagging, according to a recent media report.

Trading revenues at the five largest Wall Street lenders — JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup (NYSE:C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) — are expected to accelerate nearly 10% Y/Y to $31B in Q2, the Financial Times reported, citing consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Conversely, investment banking revenues at the five banks are anticipated to retreat 10% Y/Y to $7.5B in Q2, underscoring the muted dealmaking and equity capital markets landscape since 2021.

The megabanks are set to post their quarterly results on Tuesday and Wednesday.

If results land in line with forecasts this week, investment bankers will have made up less than a quarter of Wall Street revenue (excluding retail and asset management) for every quarter since early 2022, the FT reported. That would mark their longest stretch below that level in over a decade.

Morgan Stanley analyst Betsy Graseck is a bit more optimistic. She expects Q2 “investment banking revenues to be better than expected and management teams to point to pipelines building.” On trading, she also expects Q2 equities markets revenue to rise 10% Y/Y.

Markets typically assign a higher value to investment banking revenue than trading, since it often delivers better margins and requires less capital to generate, the article said.