Your Book Is Inside

Two executives. One conference. Opposite signals. The question for long-term investors is which one to believe, and what the answer is worth.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said Monday that the bank’s investment banking fees would likely decline by more than 10% in Q3 from a year earlier, while trading revenue would be roughly flat. BofA shares fell 5.14% to $59.47, dragging the S&P 500 Banks Index down 2.7%. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan got swept into the same current even though none of them said anything.

JPMorgan said something the next day. Speaking at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference, co-President Doug Petno said investment banking fees and markets revenue were expected to be up “mid-to-high teens” percentage in the third quarter. He cited strength across products and geographies, a strong pipeline, and increased management and board confidence supporting merger-and-acquisition activity. Markets revenue is also expected to increase by the mid- to high-teens percentage range, supported by broad-based strength across fixed income, currencies and commodities, and equities.

That is not a minor difference in tone. It is a direct contradiction.

JPMorgan posted $3.208 billion in investment banking fees in Q2 2026, a 28% jump compared to the same period a year earlier. That is already a high base to grow from, which makes a mid-to-high-teens projection for Q3 even more notable. BofA, by contrast, expects investment banking fees of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion, below $2 billion in Q3 2025. At the midpoint, that would represent a decline of about 15% year over year and roughly 20% from the $2.14 billion posted in Q2 2026.

Part of this gap reflects genuine structural differences. JPMorgan has ranked No. 1 globally in investment banking fees, and it reported an 8.4% market share in its 2025 annual report, citing Dealogic data. Scale matters enormously in deal advisory: the largest mandates flow to the banks with the deepest relationships and the broadest product coverage. Moynihan himself acknowledged as much, noting that Bank of America is “not as well positioned in some of the businesses that have more activity.”

Petno added that “our clients are seeing through the market volatility and the fog of uncertainty.” That framing matters. He described the current environment as one of the “busiest summers that we have seen in a long time.”

So what does the selloff mean for investors willing to hold through October 13, when JPMorgan is scheduled to release earnings before the market opens? If Petno’s guidance proves accurate, the bank will report Q3 investment banking fees and trading revenue each up mid-to-high teens off a base that was already running 28% above year-ago levels. That is a powerful compounding effect, and it arrives at a moment when the sector index just handed investors a 2.7% discount.

The risks are real. Petno framed the forecast as dependent on the absence of a major market disruption. A sudden spike in credit spreads, an unexpected policy shock, or a collapse in deal confidence between now and September 30 could compress results sharply. Jefferies data as of September 3 showed investment banking proxy revenue for eight major global banks down 15% year over year and 27% from Q2, signaling stress that predates BofA’s disclosure. Some of that Jefferies data may simply reflect timing, but it is a caution worth keeping.

For long-term portfolio construction, the more durable point is JPMorgan’s competitive position. As of December 31, 2025, JPMorganChase reported 318,512 employees globally, and it reported $4.4 trillion in assets. That breadth is precisely what allows it to capture fee share that narrower peers cannot reach.

The BofA warning was real. It just was not about JPMorgan.