It has almost become a mundane truth in the direct aftermath of a crisis: If Main Street is doing well, Wall Street is doing even better.
This time around is no different, as illustrated by second-quarter earnings from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Inc. Banking was the clear bright spot, with JPMorgan posting a record quarter for dealmaking and Goldman reporting a 36% increase in revenue in its investment-banking group.
In contrast, while both banks expect loan growth to accelerate eventually, it hasn’t shown significant signs of doing so yet. JPMorgan’s total loans, including commercial and consumer, were flat from a year ago, with Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum hoping that Americans would burn through their cash quickly enough to start borrowing more as soon as the end of this year. In the meantime, however, deposits at the bank, the biggest in the U.S., rose 23%.
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