Global Banks Set to Rake in 10% More Trading Revenue in Q2—Wall Street’s Bonus Pool Just Got Deeper

Wall Street's trading desks are back in the money—again.

Global banks are poised to report a 10% surge in Q2 trading revenue, proving that volatility (and other people's misfortune) remains their most reliable profit engine. The usual suspects—FX swings, rate-hike chaos, and a dash of geopolitical panic—are fueling the bonanza.

Trading floors feast while Main Street nibbles

While retail investors chase meme stocks and crypto pumps, institutional desks quietly print money with spread-widening tricks older than your Bloomberg terminal. 'Risk management'? More like risk arbitrage.

The cynic's footnote

Funny how banks always outperform when markets underperform—almost like they've built a system where they win both ways. But hey, at least they'll tip their favorite regulators handsomely for the privilege.

12 global banks to lead the surge

Crisil’s figures cover 12 institutions, from JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley to Wells Fargo and their European peers.

Mollie Devine, who leads markets analytics at Coalition, noted that sudden price moves often boost trading profits. She called some of the tariff news a “positive catalyst” for desks looking to capitalise on volatility.

Even so, Devine pointed out that equity trading outpaced both bond and currency business, despite stock markets being smaller than fixed-income or foreign-exchange venues.

She estimates that revenues from equities jumped about 18% in Q2 compared with the same three months last year, while bond trading climbed roughly 5%.

Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo said banks are enjoying sustained elevated deal volumes due to ongoing uncertainty around trade policy, interest-rate shifts, and geopolitical tensions.

“The higher trading in the last few years is not an aberration, but more a path back to normal after 15 years of zero percent interest rates,” he explained.

Tradeweb’s data supports this view.

In April, its average daily trading volume hit $2.7 trillion, up nearly 39% from April 2024, and in March, it set an all-time record of $2.71 trillion per day.

On its platform, U.S. government bond trades in April surged to the highest monthly total ever, with the biggest weekly gain since 2001 following those first tariff alerts.

2025 trading revenue could hit a 16-year high

Looking ahead, Coalition Greenwich predicts that total market revenue for its index banks will rise about 7% in 2025 index, compared with a 13% increase seen in the first half.

At $246.2 billion, that WOULD be the strongest annual result since 2009, the year after the financial crisis erupted.

Meanwhile, Mayo forecasts that major U.S. lenders will see trading revenue climb around 8% in the first half of 2025, slow to about 5% in the back half of the year, and settle into low single-digit growth in 2026. “The immediate effect of the tariffs was to exaggerate the extent of trading,” but as that news fades, so will the spike in trading, he said.

Cryptopolitan Academy: Tired of market swings? Learn how DeFi can help you build steady passive income. Register Now