Wall Street banks were optimistic Donald Trump’s second term would unleash a dealmaking boom. Instead, it’s delivered a trading bonanza.
First-half trading revenue at the five biggest lenders jumped $10 billion from last year to a record level, with tariffs and tax policy driving a surge of activity across equity, currency and bond markets. Investment-banking revenue, meanwhile, nudged up less than $1 billion, and is still almost 40% below the 2021 peak as that same volatility weighed on merger and IPO volumes.
“Post liberation day we saw a lot of market volatility,” Jim DeMare, Bank of America Corp.’s …