![]() Trading revenues can be volatile, it’s true, but that volatility is two-sided they can make huge losses like in 2008, but they can also save the day as they did at the start of the pandemic. Up until not so long ago, those “gaps” between BoA and the rest of the bulge bracket might have been seen as strategic advantages, evidence of better quality earnings.īut it could be argued now that “quality of earnings” was always a strange concept – money is money, it doesn’t come in degrees of quality. Other banks, including some of the biggest incumbents in these markets, have been trying to move in the other direction to reduce the importance of volatile and capital-consuming trading revenue and increase the proportion of “stable” loans and deposits in the business mix. This is quite an interesting strategic call to have made. According to Jim DeMare, the president of global markets, the aim is to “close the gaps to our main rivals” and to diversify revenues from the domestic franchise that has historically dominated BoA’s income statement. An 8% increase in the expenses of the Global Markets Group overall for the last quarter was able to drive a 24% increase in fixed-income trading revenues. One reason why BoA is content to keep increasing this investment is that it’s done well for it so far. The currency and commodities salesforce, for example, has doubled in Europe since 2021, while several other teams have seen 50% growth in headcount. This is despite having a hiring freeze and despite having grown significantly already over the last couple of years. More cheerful news elsewhere – Bank of America is committed to continuing to expand its fixed-income trading business, particularly in Europe. There’s no moral to some stories, other than to remember that anything can happen at any time, so try never to part with harsh words. In fact, another young man with no connection to the banking industry died two weeks ago in similar circumstances – the police haven’t suggested either death is suspicious so far, but people have made connections and are warning each other to be careful.īankers are humans too – they live and have friends in the city, they go out, and sometimes horrible things happen to them. But other than that, this awful event doesn’t seem to have anything to do with banking at all. John Castic happened to work at Goldman Sachs, whose security office said they had been doing what they could to help with the search and support his family. In many ways, the very normality is unnerving. In other words, a completely normal twentysomething banker from New York. ![]() Castic seems to have been a follower of most of the big meme accounts, and apparently occasionally interacted with some of them. The normally irrepressible finance meme accounts interrupted their stream of humour yesterday, as the terrible news came through that John Castic’s body had been found in Newtown Creek, half a mile away from the Brooklyn Mirage nightclub where he was last seen.
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