Goldman Smashes Estimates, but Cards Overshadow JPMorgan, BofA

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Here’s the short version of Earnings Week so far: Big US banks made a lot more money than expected, and almost no one seemed overly impressed. Instead, the focus at firms like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America was on 2026 concerns, which included rising expenses and plans to trim headcount. CEOs also must grapple with orders from their new business partner, Donald Trump, to cap credit-card rates and lower swipe fees. (This doesn’t sound like the deregulation everyone was expecting.) Still, there were plenty of positives in the quarterly results, especially for Morgan Stanley debt bankers. And hey, remember The Monitor’s hypothetical Polymarket wager last week on Goldman Sachs traders racking up a massive profit? It would have been a winner.

Politics are also afoot in Switzerland, where UBS Group Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti says proposed banking reforms might go “too far” and “he can’t be confident” of an acceptable outcome. (He might not be around to oversee it — a succession hunt is underway.) His counterpart at HSBC Holdings, CEO Georges Elhedery, has reportedly hung a for-sale sign on its Singapore insurance unit.

It’s been a long time since Peter Lynch’s book came out with his famous advice to “buy what you know,” but we’re pretty sure he didn’t mean “trade on insider information.” Alas, that’s the allegation surrounding an ex-Lazard banker (innocent until proven otherwise) whose tips to others supposedly generated $41 million of illicit profits.

Then there’s the constructive kind of insider. Check out Michele Alt, her husband, Konrad, and eight other partners at Klaros Group, the go-to gurus for fintechs pursuing US bank charters. Just make sure you’re legit before you call: “We don’t work with somebody that we don’t want as part of the banking system,” she says. — Rick Green

The following was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.