Fourth-quarter profits at Bank of America (BAC) and Morgan Stanley (MS) more than doubled, cementing a Wall Street revival that lifted results at all big US banks and has dealmakers optimistic about the coming Trump era in 2025.
Bank of America’s earnings in the quarter were $6.7 billion, up 111% from the $3.1 billion earned in the same year-ago period. The results lifted its full-year profits to $27.1 billion.
Morgan Stanley earned $3.7 billion in the final quarter of last year, up 145%. Its full-year profit of $13.4 billion jumped 47% from 2023.
“We finished 2024 with a strong fourth quarter,” said Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, and “we believe this broad momentum sets up 2025 very well for Bank of America.”
Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick called it “an excellent fourth quarter” that capped “off one of the strongest years in the firm’s history.”
Both banks demonstrated that a two-year-long drought in dealmaking came to an end in 2024, and trading surged as volatility swelled around the Us presidential election.
Bank of America investment banking fees rose 44%, and sales and trading revenue rose 10% to $4.1 billion. Morgan Stanley’s investment banking revenue rose 25% to $1.64 billion.
Strong Wall Street results helped other big banks in the fourth quarter, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Citigroup (C), and Wells Fargo (WFC).
JPMorgan churned out more annual profits than it ever has before as it earned $14 billion in the final quarter of 2024.
Its full-year profits rose to $58 billion, an all-time record for JPMorgan and the most ever in the history of American banking. Its fourth quarter profits were up 50% from the year-earlier period.
Goldman’s earnings in the fourth quarter jumped 105% to $4.1 billion, and its full-year profits jumped 68% to $14.2 billion. Its investment banking fees in the fourth quarter were up 24%.
Wells Fargo’s investment banking fees increased 59% in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier, and its fourth quarter earnings rose to $5.08 billion compared with $3.45 billion a year earlier.
Many bankers hope the dealmaking revival will continue in 2025 as the GOP takes over Washington.
The stocks of the biggest US lenders rallied following the election of Donald Trump on hopes that his administration would loosen some rules and apply more leniency in approving corporate mergers.
The Trump administration is expected to scrap or revise a set of proposed capital rules that would have crimped future industry profits.
And all of the big bank stocks rallied again Wednesday following the start of earnings season.
