China-U.S. Tensions Flare in Volatile Trading Day & Why Big Bank Profits Spooked the Market

Summary

Prof G Markets – October 15, 2025 Episode Summary

Main Theme:
This episode dives into two major financial news stories: rapid escalations in China-U.S. trade tensions that sent the markets on a rollercoaster, and the paradox of big bank profits unnerving Wall Street despite record earnings reports. Host Ed Elson unpacks the drama with expert guests Alice Hahn (China economist) and Telus Demos (WSJ), highlighting market reactions, economic narratives from policymakers, and the underlying disconnect between Main Street and Wall Street in 2025.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Market Volatility Fueled by China-U.S. Tensions (01:53–12:52)

Timeline of Escalation (01:53–04:05)

• New U.S. Port Fees: U.S. implements new fees on Chinese vessels, leading to retaliatory Chinese port fees and sanctions on U.S. shipbuilders.
• Market Whiplash: Indices drop up to 1.5%. Optimism flickers as officials suggest ongoing dialogue, but another selloff follows Trump's heated rhetoric and threats (e.g., "cooking oil embargo") over halted soybean purchases.
• Chip Stock News: Amidst turmoil, AMD shares rise briefly on a chip deal with Oracle, but Oracle stock drops.

Expert Analysis with Alice Hahn (04:05–12:52)

• Both Sides Caught Off Guard:
  • China underestimated the U.S. response to expanded rare earth export controls.
  • Rapid oscillation from Trump's softened tone to hawkish escalation mirrors the unpredictability of his previous administration.
  • "I think both sides are fundamentally misreading each other, which is what is casting us back into a period of volatility." – Alice Hahn (06:56)
• Weaponizing Critical Minerals & PR War:
  • U.S. aims to frame China as a global adversary manipulating supply chains to sway international opinion.
  • Notable quote: “What they are trying to do is shift the narrative to show that China is the adversary, not just to the US but to the Europeans, the Japanese, to other countries…” – Alice Hahn (08:14)
  • Hint at more hawkish U.S. stance ahead of midterms, shifting from tariffs to tech wars and escalatory measures.
• Impact on TikTok & Broader Tech:
  • TikTok deal likely unaffected due to minimal concessions from China.
  • Hahn highlights bigger risks in chips, biotech, and further trade technology escalations, with both sides gaming leverage ahead of late-October talks.
• Market Expectation:
  • Near-term volatility expected as both sides escalate pre-negotiation.

Memorable Moment

• Cooking Oil Embargo: Ed Elson laughs at Trump's latest threat: "It does feel as if he's grasping at straws here. Anything to insult them." (12:35)

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2. Big Bank Earnings & Wall Street's “Paradox” (14:31–27:52)

Record-Breaking Bank Earnings (14:31–16:49)

• Banks Outperform: JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Citi all beat expectations; best quarter ever for Goldman.
• Yet Stocks Fall for JP Morgan & Goldman: Wells and Citi rise, Goldman and JP Morgan drop slightly.

Analysis with Telus Demos (WSJ) (15:54–27:52)

• Why Big Banks Are Thriving:
  • Diversified business models capitalize on both financial and consumer activity.
  • "The big headline is... it's a good time to be a very big bank." – Telus Demos (16:05)
  • Surging dealmaking and M&A drive particularly strong results at Goldman.
• Market Jitters Despite Good News:
  • Investors worry current conditions are "too good," and question sustainability of M&A boom amid geopolitical uncertainty.
  • "What goes up must come down. And so I think the market might be starting to wonder, could it really get even better from here?" – Telus Demos (19:18)
• Credit Market and Bubble Concerns:

  • Jamie Dimon (JP Morgan) and David Solomon (Goldman) warn of "bubble territory," not just in AI stocks but in riskier corporate credit.

  • Tight credit spreads are reminiscent of pre-2008 risk.

  • Corporate bankruptcies (e.g., Tricolor, First Brands) hint at hidden risks being exposed.

    “Bubbles come in many forms... you can look at what's going in the credit markets and you can argue that that is a bubble.” – Telus Demos (20:54)

• The Limits of Banks as Economic Bellwethers:
  • Big bank performance doesn't directly reflect the whole U.S. economy due to their focus on affluent clients and multinational corporations.
  • Demos: “If you really want economic indicators, you should really look at smaller and middle market banks... those banks are much more touching a lot of the companies that are at risk.” (26:40)

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3. Main Street vs. Wall Street: The Great Divergence (28:06–30:26)

• Wall Street’s Banner Year:

  • Goldman and Citi stocks up 47% and 51% YTD respectively (28:20).
  • Trading and investment banking fees surge, strikingly outperforming the S&P’s 13% YTD gains.

• Broken Economic Narrative:

  • Political rhetoric had forecasted 2025 to be “Main Street’s year,” but:
    • “...not only has this Main street over Wall street agenda not been delivered, actually the opposite has happened. It's a great year for Wall street, the best year for Wall street, and a bad year for Main Street.” – Ed Elson (30:18)
  • Main Street struggles: Consumer sentiment down 22%, job growth plunges, small business optimism falls, and bankruptcies rise 12%.

• Pending Deregulation:

  • New administration proposals could boost big bank earnings by another 35%, further widening the gap.

Notable Quote

• Ed Elson (31:31):
  • “There is no better time to be big and rich in America than today. Whether you are a bank or whether you are a tech company or if you're just a person, the more money you have in 2025, the more money you will receive. And these bank earnings record, bank earnings are just another example.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Alice Hahn (on U.S.-China Tariffs):

  • “I think both sides are fundamentally misreading each other, which is what is casting us back into a period of volatility.” (06:56)

• Telus Demos (on bank earnings):

  • “The big headline is the same it's been the last few quarters, which is that it's a good time to be a very big bank.” (16:05)
  • “What goes up must come down. And so I think the market might be starting to wonder, could it really get even better from here?” (19:18)
  • “Bubbles come in many forms... you can look at what's going in the credit markets and you can argue that that is a bubble.” (20:54)
  • “If you really want economic indicators, you should really look at smaller and middle market banks... those banks are much more touching a lot of the companies that are at risk.” (26:40)

• Ed Elson (on Wall Street vs. Main Street):

  • “There is no better time to be big and rich in America than today.” (31:31)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |-------------|----------------------------------------------------------| | 01:53–04:05 | Market turmoil recap; China-U.S. tariffs timeline | | 04:05–12:52 | Alice Hahn on China-U.S. escalation & rare earths | | 12:53–14:31 | Break/ads (omitted) | | 14:31–15:54 | Bank earnings overview | | 15:54–27:52 | Telus Demos on why big banks’ profits surprised markets | | 28:06–30:26 | Wall Street’s record year, Main Street struggling | | 30:26–31:45 | Deregulation & the ongoing policy divergence |

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Episode Insights Recap

• China-U.S. Relations: Markets remain highly sensitive to policy whiplash, and both sides’ miscalculations point to further volatility.
• Big Banks’ Paradox: Record profits don’t guarantee stock gains; concerns over bubbles and sustainability loom large.
• Main Street vs. Wall Street: The long-promised pivot to Main Street is missing; structural advantages continue to fuel prosperity at the top as smaller businesses and average Americans face mounting headwinds.

This episode delivers a stark snapshot of a market environment buffeted by global politics, elite profits, and a growing socioeconomic divide—true to Prof G Markets’ “no mercy, no malice” style.

Transcript

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Money market matters.

[Ed Elson]

If money is evil, then that building is hell.

[Telus Demos]

The show goes on.

[Ed Elson]

Sell. Sell. Welcome to Prof. G Markets. I'm Ed elson. It is October 15th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. The major indices fell on resurgent tensions with China. The Dow managed to recover its losses and end the day higher after Fed Chair Powell indicated that rate cuts are on the way. Meanwhile, the yield on two year treasuries hit their lowest level since 2022. And finally, AMD shares rose as much as 3% after the company announced a chip deal with Oracle. Oracle said it will purchase 50,000 GPUs from AMD and its shares fell more than 3%. Okay, what's happening? New developments in the ongoing US China trade war spooked the markets yesterday, just a day after they had rebounded from Trump's initial tariff threats and then his softening of his stance. First, the US imposed new port fees for Chinese vessels. The these levies were originally proposed shortly after Liberation Day, but they only formally took effect yesterday. Then China fired back. They imposed similar port fees of their own, and they also announced sanctions on certain American shipbuilders. The S and P and Dow fell as much as 1 1/2% on these fears of escalating tensions. Once again, by noon, a U.S. trade representative said that President Trump and President Xi are still on track to meet and the indices rebounded. But just before the closing bell, Trump accused China of committing a quot economically hostile act by halting American soybean purchases. And in retaliation, he said on Truth Social that the administration is considering a cooking oil embargo. The post triggered another sell off and dragged the S and P back into the red in the final minutes of the trading day. So a lot of crazy tariff developments, a lot of confusing drama once again. So to unpack these developments, to explain what on earth is going on here, we are speaking with Alice Hahn, China economist at Greenrat Mantel and host of the China Decode podcast. Alice, thank you for joining us on profit markets.

[Alice Hahn]

Thanks Ed. What a difference a day makes, I have to say.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, exactly. We were just talking about this yesterday. We thought we had a handle on what was going on with China. Indeed, we're maybe seeing the trade war is back on. I mean, help us make sense of what has happened here. I mean we had the tariff threats from Trump last week, then over the weekend he softens the stance. Then the markets appear to be happy about that. Markets go back up and then all of this stuff happens today. And I'm looking at Trump back on Truth Social. He's calling China economically hostile. What actually has happened over the last couple of days here?

[Alice Hahn]

I think ultimately both sides were caught off guard by each other's policies and reactions. On the first side, I would say China certainly miscalculated its policy. It thought it could, to borrow soccer term, slip one past the goalie by basically expanding this framework of export controls for critical minerals, these five additional rare earths elements. And it didn't expect the Trump administration, I think in hindsight to act quite so aggressively. And certainly if you think about the minutiae of the export controls for these rare earths, it is pretty significant. Now China did try to walk it back ofcom over the weekend saying that it ultimately wasn't tant amount to a ban, it was just going to limit based on a licensure regime where necessary. But I don't think that that has assuaged or allayed any of the fears from Washington, even although you've got Besant, the Treasury Secretary, coming out saying that a deal can still be made, that Trump and Xi will likely still meet in Korea at the end of the month. Fundamentally, I think that it's created more hostility amongst the hawks in Washington who have already been in the camp that China is this long term strategic adversary. I think what has been interesting in the first year of Trump's presidency is that he has very clearly taken a more dovish position towards China. But I think what we've seen in the last few days is that how quickly, just as in Trump 1.0, that can shift again to a more hawkish bent. And certainly I think Trump and his team are unhappy with the way in which China has weaponized rare earths. And I think that we will continue to see volatility on both sides ultimately trending towards continuing conversation and wanting a deal. But this, again shows how a deal is extremely difficult for both sides. We've gone past tariffs, we have added impasse or a detente of sorts on the tariffs at 30%. But when it comes to these other aspects, whether it's port fees or it's export controls or purchases of soybeans, these other nitty gritty matters are still very, very hard to iron out. And both sides believe that the other side is weaker than the other side believes. China believes that the US Is in a position of weakness when it comes to certainly tariffs and when it comes to rare earths. And America, again, per Besant's comments the other day, believes that China's economy is extremely weak because it is so trade dependent. I think both sides are fundamentally misreading each other, which is what is casting us back into a period of volatility.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah. I was interested to see Besson's comments that he made to the Financial Times. I was surprised that he would go to a newspaper and say these condiments right when we thought that the tensions had eased. Right when we thought that, okay, maybe, maybe things are going to be fine. And then Besson goes to the Financial Times. He says that these restrictions are a sign of how weak their economy is, how weak China's economy is. He says they want to pull everybody else down with them. And these are very aggressive statements to make and especially aggressive to go to a news outlet who, you know, are going to report on it. So I'd love for you to just break down, why is Scott Besant saying that right now, right at the moment where we thought that maybe things Were okay.

[Alice Hahn]

I think ultimately the US Side wants to remain firm on this issue on China basically weaponizing rare earth elements. So what they are trying to do is shift the narrative to show that China is the adversary, not just to the US but to the Europeans, the Japanese, to other countries that are actually quite fearful of the way in which China is weaponizing its core technologies, including critical minerals. So I think that there's been a PR campaign by Washington over the last few days to try to turn this into a narrative in which China is the adversary. China is willing to use its large in critical minerals to strategically control and manipulate supply chains. I think that is clearly playing to an international audience. It's clearly playing to Brussels, to Tokyo, to some of these other would be allies in the western developed world. Remains to be seen if this is effective. But I think that ultimately Besant is walking two sides of the same street, which is, on the one hand, he wants to continue to talk to Halifung, for instance, this week at the IMF meetings in Washington. But at the same time, he wants to be seen to be tough on China. I certainly think that this is probably the first innings of an administration that may take a more hawkish bent coming into 2026. I think it's not a coincidence that we have the midterms. There will be, I think, a legislative push in 2026 in advance of the November midterms for the Trump administration to take a more hawkish position on China, not just on trade and national security, but also technology. So I think that we're starting to see the tides shift again and again. If you recall trade war one, we saw a first innings in the trade war and then a follow up in a tech war that was more explosive and volatile and prolonged. I think we're seeing similar patterns in Trump 2.0.

[Ed Elson]

One implication of this that came to mind was what this may do to the TikTok deal. I mean, the TikTok deal is, I would assume, largely dependent on some cooperation between the US and China. We now have this rare earth metal blow up, which is causing the Trump administration to get very upset and it appears to be re implementing this trade war. Do you think this could have implications on this TikTok deal? Do you think this could affect the outcome of having a TikTok US?

[Alice Hahn]

I would put TikTok US in a different category, I think, fundamentally, because that deal, as it currently stands, is still very advantageous to China. China didn't really have to sell or divest TikTok USA, the subsidiary it effectively kept the status quo ex ante. It did concede on licensing the algorithm to the subsidiary in the US but ultimately it didn't have to concede very much. So I think given that China didn't make huge concessions, given Trump really wants TikTok to continue to exist for domestic political reasons, I think that that deal probably stays in its current form. I think separately, what is more problematic is what is going to happen in terms of other technologies. In terms of chips, might there be more restrictions on chips and chip equipment from the US or from other countries going into China? I think that's very, very conceivable. Similarly, there are other aspects, like biotech. China is still reliant on US Equipment. I think there could be a ramp up there as well. And then the last thing that I will say is that ultimately the Trump administration, I think, will start to bring in more escalatory measures. It's already talking about stopping purchases of cooking oil. I think that a lot of other issues when it comes to trade and technology will come to the fore in the next few days because ultimately both sides are trying to gain leverage in advance of the talks if they do happen in South Korea and the end of October. So I think in the next week or so, we're in a very volatile period in which both sides, I think, have an incentive to escalate in order to de escalate.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, the cooking oil embargo kind of made me laugh. It does feel as if he's grasping at straws here. Anything to insult them. Okay. Alice Hahn is China economist at greenmantle, host of the China Decode podcast, which you should go check out. Alice, we really appreciate your time.

[Alice Hahn]

Thanks so much, Ed.

[Ed Elson]

Talk to you soon after the break. The banks kick off earnings season. If you're enjoying the show, give Profg Markets a follow.

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[Ed Elson]

We'Re back with property markets. Earnings season kicked off strong with JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citigroup all largely beating expectations boosted by a surge in trading and deal making. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs posted massive profits, with Goldman logging its best third quarter revenue ever. However, both stocks fell slightly following those reports. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo and Citi also posted very strong profits, with Wells Fargo raising its profitability target. Both of their stocks popped after the earnings, so some mixed reactions from Wall street, but overall an incredible quarter for all of the banks. JP Morgan's profits rose 12%, Citi's rose 15%, Goldman's rose 37% overall, amazing quarter, especially when it comes to investment banking. As we expected lots more M and A activity last quarter, so investment banking revenue was way up. That is partially why we saw such a good quarter for Goldman, which is more of a pure play investment bank out of these companies. But still we have this slightly strange market reaction where JP Morgan and Goldman actually fell. So to help us make sense of this, we are speaking with Telus Demos. He is the writer and co host of the Wall Street Journal's Take on the Week podcast, Telus. Thank you very much for joining us on profdomarkets.

[Telus Demos]

Thanks for having me.

[Ed Elson]

So we've seen all these bank earnings this week. Pretty good across the board. We'll just start with what were your initial takeaways? What did we see in these bank earnings?

[Telus Demos]

The big headline is the same it's been the last few quarters, which is that it's a good time to be a very big bank. They have a diversified business model. That means that when things are busy on Wall street, they do well. When there are deals being made in corporate boardrooms, when there's a lot of trading activity in the markets, they have a business that benefits from that. On their consumer business, their consumers tend to be relatively more affluent people who have a lot of banking relationships. They might have a mortgage, a bunch of credit cards, money in a checking account, wealth management. We know that people who have more money are doing well these days. Their stock portfolios are up, they're not over borrowed. So those people are doing well. Wall street is doing well, the big banks are doing well.

[Ed Elson]

So we saw JP Morgan's profits were up, Citigroup's profits were up, Goldman's profits were up, especially up 37%. It appears that this is largely, I mean, it's both things, as you say. You see the consumer units that are doing pretty well. But it seems like the big trend, at least that we're seeing is deal making is up M and A and therefore investment banking. And that may explain Goldman's relative outperformance. Is that what we're seeing, that we're seeing like this explosion in investment banking?

[Telus Demos]

Absolutely. Goldman is a juggernaut in M and A dealings, right? Like they advise tons of deals, they make huge fees on those things. So when the deal making environment is good, they're doing well. And that extends both to companies buying each other. It also is when private equities firms are buying public companies in leverage buyouts. It also includes IPOs, it includes debt offerings. They're highly leveraged, as they say, to the deal making environment. And while we haven't hit the 2021 heights so far, and still to this point, I don't think that the deal boom that some were predicting when Trump took office has quite landed. Goldman talked about how its pipeline of potential deals is really strong. So they just see a lot of activity there and that's very good for their business. It's a high return, really good business.

[Ed Elson]

One thing that kind of surprised us, however, is that despite these great quarters that we saw at Goldman and that we saw at JP Morgan, record quarters by a lot of measurements. Despite that the stock dropped, the stock for JP Morgan was down and Goldman was down. Do you have any thoughts on why the market reacted the way it did?

[Telus Demos]

Yeah, I think there's a couple things on the market's mind, if I may attempt to read it, which as we know is sometimes folly. But one thing that could disrupt that deal making boom is if corporate decision makers, if private equity decision makers suddenly feel a great sense of unease and uncertainty and what has, you know, the recent sort of back and forth on China and tariffs done, other than inject a lot more uncertainty into the environment. So maybe markets didn't hear quite enough happy talk from investment bankers about that and their confidence. I also think that there's a bubbling of concern and you heard this more on JP Morgan's call than you did at other banks. But it's A similar concern for a couple across the banks is that things are too good. And how long can these good times really last? This long. Things are too active on the deal side. There's too much credit extension happening and what goes up must come down. And so I think the market might be starting to wonder, could it really get even better from here? And as we know, markets are often about the future, not the past. So that might be something that was on people's minds.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah. Two of the larger concerns that were raised, one was this potential of a bubble, an AI bubble. Jamie Dimon said that many assets, quote, look like they are entering bubble territory. So he just flat out said the word bubble. David Solomon spoke about investor exuberance. And then there was this other concern that you mentioned there, which are these credit market concerns. JP Morgan, they took this, I mean, $170 million hit because they made a loan to this company called Tricolor, which turned out to be fraudulent. It collapsed. And then Jamie Dimon spoke a little bit about these credit market concerns. Could you elaborate on what those concerns are? One, in terms of the potential of the bubble and what that would mean for the banks and also this credit market froth that Jamie Dimon talks about.

[Telus Demos]

Yeah. When we talk about bubbles, we often immediately think of the stock market. Right. We think of how can Nvidia continue to go up as much as it has. But bubbles come in many forms. And you can look at what's going in the credit markets and you can argue that that is a bubble. And you might measure that by looking at the spread, which is how much more you earn owning corporate credits than you do owning Treasuries, which are risk free. Corporate credits have some risk. That extra return is really small, historically small. It has not really been smaller than at any time since, by some measures, kind of the peak of the pre 2008 credit bubble that we had then, maybe even since the 1990s, by some measures. So there's potentially a bubble on that side of the market as well. And so that raises the question of whether or not we're always talking about credit risk from the consumer point of view. Right. Are people going to pay back their auto loans or credit card loans, et cetera? We talk about that all the time. We have a lot less visibility and conversation and in some ways data about what's happening with corporate with companies and what we wrote about happening with some of the recent bankruptcies. You mentioned Tricolor. There've been a couple of other sort of standout corporate bankruptcies recently that have Roiled the credit markets a little bit. Those are companies that are exposed to what's going on in the economy. Right. Things are happening in the with tariff policy. One of the companies that went bankrupt First Brands was an auto parts supplier. We know that tariffs are a big part of what goes into cars and auto parts. Now, that's not the only reason that those companies might have failed. J.P. morgan on the call talked about how these things sometimes expose risks that companies are taking. Big policy changes mean that there might be something, companies that are highly leveraged or that are, you know, barely kind of making their payments or God forbid, in some cases, allegedly doing fraudulent things that can get exposed by these bubbly markets. You know, things are priced to perfection. These companies aren't perfect. So I think that that's maybe what's in the back of the market's mind and what people are thinking about in these credit markets is like, what are we going to learn has been going on under the hood when we thought everything was great, when in fact, all the things that we talk about, tariffs, immigration policy, you know, other kind of economic changes, what's going on in the labor market, like those things were affecting companies, but just not in a way we could see until all of a sudden some loss pops up. And I think that's. That's what maybe investors are worried about is, is that the things that they can't see or that they aren't hearing about day to day are going to be the ones that end up hurting them.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, it certainly seemed to be front of mind for Jamie Dimon, despite the fact they had this record quarter, these bank earnings. You know, we learn about the big banks whenever they report, and it's nice that they all kind of report at the same time. We get a general picture of how Wall street is doing, and in this case, the picture is pretty good. They're all doing pretty well. It can also be kind of a bellwether moment for what is happening at large in the economy. I mean, Jamie Dimon, David Solomon, these are people who have very, very good oversight over what is actually happening in the economy. They get a lot of great data. Their job is to kind of figure out what's going on in America and react to that. Did we learn anything in these bank earnings about what is happening in the real economy in America right now? Did we get any insight as to what things may look like over the next few months?

[Telus Demos]

Well, like you said, these companies are run by people with access to enormous amounts of data and insight about what's going on in the economy. And so to the extent that they continue to run their businesses with the expectation that things are going well, they're going to. They expect more deals to happen. They are making loans that they think will get repaid. That speaks to their confidence that the economy will weather whatever storms come. But it also says something about their own businesses. Right? JPMorgan Chase is an enormous company with incredible resources. Even if there was an economic downturn, JP Morgan might not feel it the way a lot of other companies do because they have such enormous resources. So I don't think that we can take what the banks say or do or their results as a direct read on the economy. I think we can infer a lot of things, but I don't think that it's a one for one relationship because the fact is that banks are more leveraged to the financial economy when. Here's something that's I think, underappreciated about banks. When the markets are good, things are good for them. They make more money managing a larger amount of assets because prices are high. They might be lending larger balances, they might be getting more deposits because people are selling investments and depositing that money. So a rising market is good for the banks. And so in that way they're more a receiver of what's going on than they are necessarily a driver of it. So I think that we can pick and choose different indicators. We can maybe draw comfort from things banks say about the conversations they're having with their clients. Those are good indicators. But I don't think that as the banks go, the economy goes is necessarily the lesson to draw from big banks. I mean, the US Economy is so vast that even banks as big as we have are not spanning the entire thing. Nor are a lot of companies, as they say, financialized in a way that they touch the banks. I mean, maybe a small business has a credit card at a bank, but it's not like they're getting giant lines of credit and getting these services necessarily from the country's biggest bank. In fact, I've argued that if you really want economic indicators, you should really look at smaller and middle market banks. Those banks are much more touching a lot of the companies that are at risk. Right? Because big banks customers are also often the biggest companies and those giant multinational corporations. Whatever's going on in tariffs, whatever's going on in the economy, they have a lot of levers to pull their diversified, they're operating in other markets, etc. You know, if you're just a domestic kind of Monoline company. You do one thing, and that one thing is being, you know, challenged or disrupted in some way. That might be it for you. And so it might be a smaller bank that has a overall kind of larger relationship with you. And so you should really look at, you know, kind of the banks you've never heard of. You should be looking at their results just as much as you are at the JP Morgan's and Bank of Americas and Goldman Sachs of the world.

[Ed Elson]

All right, tell us. Demos is the writer and co host of the Wall Street Journal's Take on the Week podcast. Tell us. We appreciate your time.

[Telus Demos]

Thanks for your time. Really appreciate you having me on.

[Ed Elson]

So a record quarter and a record year in many ways for all of these banks. Goldman had its best quarter since 2021. Investment banking business is on track for its strongest year ever. JP Morgan also had a great quarter, $9 billion in trading revenue. That was the best ever quarter for JP Morgan and their trading business. Citigroup also crushed total revenue, up 9%. Best Q3 ever. And then you just look at the stocks of these companies. Goldman Stock is up 47% year to date. Citi stock is up 51% year to date. So, yes, maybe there was a slight pullback for J.P. morgan and for Goldman, but ultimately these companies are crushing. You compare it to the S and P, which is up 13% year to date. So these companies are massively outperforming. It is a great time to be a bank, specifically a big Wall street bank. Perhaps even the best time to be a big Wall street bank. These investment banking fees, they're surging. The trading revenues are rising. Every big player on Wall street posting record numbers. Which is interesting because you might also remember just a few months ago when the administration was telling us that basically the opposite was gonna happen, that the big banks and the Wall street banks, they had already had their day in the sun and they were telling us that 2025 was gonna be Main Street's year, not Wall Street's year, Main Street's year.

[Workday Host]

For too long, financial policy has served large financial institutions at the expense of smaller ones.

[Ed Elson]

No more. I'm proud to be the president for the workers, not the outsourcers. The president who stands up for Main street, not Wall street, who protects the middle class, not the political class.

[Workday Host]

For the last four decades, basically, since I began my career in Wall Street, Wall street has grown wealthier than ever before. And it can continue to grow and do well. But for the next four years, the Trump agenda is focused on Main Street. It's Main Street's turn. It's Main Street's turn to hire workers. It's Main Street's turn to drive investment. And it's Main Street's turn to restore the American dream. And who's going to lead this revival? The men and women in this room.

[Ed Elson]

And yet here we are in September. Wall Street's having its best year ever. Investment banker bonuses are up almost 30% this year. And, and at the same time, while Wall street is having one of its best years, Main street is struggling. Consumer sentiment is down 22% from a year ago. Job growth between May and August, down 75% from a year ago. Small business sentiment is also in decline. 64% of small businesses saying they're struggling with these supply chain disruptions. 31% saying they have to raise prices. Bankruptcy filings are up 12% compared to last year. So not only has this Main street over Wall street agenda not been delivered, actually the opposite has happened. It's a great year for Wall street, the best year for Wall street, and a bad year for Main Street. And the most ironic part of all of this is that this is actually only going to continue because as we speak, the administration is working on a deregulation plan which is going to eliminate many of the rules that were put in place after 2008. It's going to reduce the capital requirements for these big, large scale lending projects, that is these data center projects. And according to many estimates, because of these deregulations that the administration is pursuing, average earnings for banks will go up by roughly 35%. This isn't to say that it is a bad thing that banks are doing well. But it is to say that the economic story that the administration told us for many months, that story was a lie. They said, go long Main street, go short Wall Street. They said it is blue collar over white collar, small companies over big companies. The poor are going to outperform the rich. False, false, false on all counts. There is no better time to be big and rich in America than today. Whether you are a bank or whether you are a tech company or if you're just a person, the more money you have in 2025, the more money you will receive. And these bank earnings record, bank earnings are just another example. Okay, that's it for today. This episode was produced by Claire Miller, edited by Joel Patterson and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Our research team is Dan Shalon, Isabella Kinsel, Kristin o' Donoghue and Mia Silverio. And our technical director is Drew Burrows. Thank you for listening to Property Markets from Property Media. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow. I'm Ed Elson. I will see you tomorrow.

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