Wall Street’s big banks deliver mixed earnings. Executives bet the IPO lull won’t last
Fortune Morgan Chittum
Wall Street’s biggest banks just turned in a mixed earnings week. The odd part: even with IPO delays, bankers still say the deal pipeline is strong.
Based on reporting by Fortune, Morgan Chittum — read the original for the full story.
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Wall Street’s biggest banks spent the week sending mixed signals. Bank of America reported a third-quarter profit drop. Morgan Stanley beat on both revenue and profit, following Citigroup’s similar result a day earlier. Wells Fargo topped earnings estimates but came up short on revenue, posting $21.87 billion against expectations of $22.31 billion. It was the third miss on revenue in the last four quarters.
Then came JPMorgan, and that was the surprise. The country’s largest bank by assets and market cap, around $881 billion, missed on both revenue and earnings for the first time in nearly three years. Higher expenses and weaker fixed-income trading did the damage. Goldman Sachs, often treated as JPMorgan’s closest dealmaking rival, went the other way and beat expectations on both revenue and earnings per share.
That split says more about the businesses than the branding. Goldman also had softness in fixed income, currencies, and commodities, but its equities business picked up the slack, with revenue jumping 72%. JPMorgan did not have that kind of cushion. Same week, same broad market, very different outcomes.
The bigger question is what this means for IPOs, because the market has seen delays from Oura, Bamboo Insurance, and Holtec Nuclear. JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum said those offerings are being delayed, not canceled, and called the bank’s deal pipeline “very, very strong.” Goldman CEO David Solomon said September got a bit softer, but argued that some companies are simply waiting when expected valuations come in 10% to 15% lower than hoped.
Matt Kennedy of Renaissance Capital made the same basic point: companies are still preparing, filing confidentially, and keeping options open. Renaissance still sees 2026 on pace to top last year’s deal count, and this year has already set a record for IPO proceeds even without SpaceX’s June offering. Kennedy also said an end to the Iran war could be a major catalyst for more activity, partly by easing oil prices and inflation pressure. A successful Anthropic IPO next month would help too.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
The bank chiefs are doing the classic Wall Street thing: calling a slowdown a pause and hoping the market buys it. Sometimes they’re right, because companies hate pulling the trigger when valuations wobble. But the real tell is that everyone keeps talking about optionality, which is banker code for “nobody wants to be the first fool.”
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