(Yahoo! Finance) - Fourth-quarter 2024 profits at Bank of America (BAC) and Morgan Stanley (MS) more than doubled, cementing a Wall Street revival that has dealmakers optimistic about the coming Trump era in 2025.
Strong investment banking and trading results also helped push profits higher at other big banks in the fourth quarter, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Citigroup (C), and Wells Fargo (WFC).
The six major US banks that have reported earnings so far this week showed a combined profit of more $36 billion in the fourth quarter and $145.7 billion for all of 2024.
The fourth quarter mark was more than double their collective profit in the fourth quarter of 2023, and the annual haul was 19% higher.
"We finished 2024 with a strong fourth quarter," Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said Thursday, and "we believe this broad momentum sets up 2025 very well for Bank of America."
Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick on Thursday lauded "an excellent fourth quarter" that capped "off one of the strongest years in the firm’s history" — a year that also happened to be his first as boss.
Bank of America's earnings in the fourth 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.
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 13% to $4.1 billion. It notched a record in sales and trading revenue for the full year. Morgan Stanley's investment banking revenue rose 25% to $1.64 billion.
The results this week from all big banks demonstrate that one still stands above the rest: JPMorgan. It 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. That was more than double the haul of its next closest rival, Bank of America.
JPMorgan's fourth quarter profits were also up 50% from the year-earlier period.
Another big boost went to Goldman, where its 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%.
"The environment feels good," Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon told analysts Wednesday.
Even Wells Fargo, known more for its consumer operations, turned in a good Wall Street performance. Its 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.
Morgan Stanley's stock was up in Thursday morning trading following the market open, while Bank of America was flat.
By David Hollerith - Senior Reporter
