On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, October 13 and 14, the six largest US banks reported their third quarter. We wrote about each of them separately. Here they sit side by side - and looked at together, three things repeat across all of them.
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The table
| Revenue | Equities trading | FICC | Investment banking fees | Stock on report day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JPMorgan | +8% | +49% | -4% | +13% | -0.86% |
| Goldman Sachs | +23.0% | +72.4% | -0.6% | +21.3% | -0.23% |
| Morgan Stanley | +12% | +41% | -7% | -2.70% | |
| Citigroup | +8% | +14% | +4% | +9% | -5.6% |
| Bank of America | +3% | +11% | -17% | -11% | -4.7% |
| Wells Fargo | +2.0% | +20.7% | -6.9% | +6.4% | -3.10% |
The change versus the third quarter of 2025, per the banks' results releases. FICC = fixed income, currencies and commodities. JPMorgan: revenue on a managed basis. Morgan Stanley reports advisory and underwriting fees separately, not as a single total. Stock prices: official close on report day.
1. Equities trading - the engine of the quarter
Equities trading revenue rose at all six banks, and at the three large investment banks by unusual margins: Goldman Sachs by 72.4%, to $6.44 billion; JPMorgan by 49%; and Morgan Stanley by 41%, to $5.80 billion.
On the other side of the trading floor the picture is the reverse. Trading in bonds, currencies and commodities fell at five of the six - at Bank of America by 17% - and rose only at Citigroup, by 4%. In other words, the growth in trading was not broad: it rested almost entirely on the stock market.
2. Interest income - the base is still growing
At the four commercial banks, net interest income rose: Citigroup by 14%, JPMorgan by 13%, Bank of America by 8% and Wells Fargo by 4.7%. JPMorgan raised its full-year guidance, and according to its presentation it now projects about $106.2 billion, versus about $105.5 billion in July. Wells Fargo left its guidance, about $50 billion, unchanged - but at Wells Fargo the net interest margin fell to 2.43% from 2.61%.
3. Credit and capital - no single picture
Here the banks split. At JPMorgan the provision for credit losses fell 19%, and net charge-offs fell 15%. At Wells Fargo it rose 51.1%, but charge-offs themselves rose only 3.0% - most of the gap is explained by a comparison to a year in which the bank released a reserve. At Citigroup the provision rose 6%, and the charge-off rate fell to 1.09% from 1.21%.
On the capital side: the core capital ratio is lower than a year ago at four of the banks - JPMorgan at 13.9% versus 14.8%, Goldman Sachs at 12.4% versus 14.4%, Citigroup at 12.8% versus 13.3% and Wells Fargo at 10.0% versus 11.0%. At Morgan Stanley it stayed at 14.9%. And the buyback decisions differ widely: JPMorgan cut its buyback to $1.06 billion, from $6.70 billion in the second quarter, while Bank of America repurchased $6.0 billion and Goldman Sachs $3.00 billion.
And the market
All six stocks closed down on report day. Citigroup fell 5.6%, Bank of America 4.7%, Wells Fargo 3.10%, Morgan Stanley 2.70%, JPMorgan 0.86% and Goldman Sachs 0.23%. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs opened higher and closed lower.
I have no verified explanation for this decline, and I will not present a guess as if it were known. What can be said is that at some of the banks there were details the market could have focused on - a $1.2 billion regulatory charge at Bank of America, revenue below expectations at JPMorgan and Wells Fargo, expenses that rose faster than revenue at Morgan Stanley - but a report in which almost every line rose, alongside a stock that fell, is not a contradiction. They are two separate things.
הזווית שלי
דעה אישית של אילן אברמוב - לא ייעוץ ולא המלצה
I would say that what I take from this week is not a question of a good bank or a bad one, but of where the money comes from. The big banks' quarter rested on two engines: equities trading and interest income. The first depends on how active the stock market is, and the second on interest rates - and neither is under the banks' control. The banks whose stocks fell the least, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, are the ones where the first engine ran the hardest.
And note the gap between the headlines and the lines beneath them - the same pattern we saw last week in the price indexes: "Trading rose" is true, but almost entirely in equities. And anyone looking at capital will see that most of the banks hold a thinner cushion today than a year ago, and each of them decides differently what to do with its profit.
(To be clear: this is my personal opinion only. Nothing here is a recommendation to take any action, and there is no forecast here of the price of any security.)
Ilan Abramov, the author, or anyone on his behalf may hold some of the securities or funds mentioned in this article.
