JPMorgan said its markets business is booming as clients trade more actively and add risk amid recent volatility, with demand also helped by hedge unwinds and a shift in focus to U.S. corporate earnings. [1, 2]
Claudia Jury, JPMorgan's global co-head of sales and research, said: "Clients are actively trading and they are adding risk," and added that people are trying to take advantage of the volatility despite uncertainty around geopolitical narratives. [1] Scott Hamilton, the other global co-head, said supply chains, commodities and Middle East tensions are the main concerns for clients. [1]
The comments came during JPMorgan's annual Global Markets Conference in Paris, where executives said clients had unwound some hedges set up in the early weeks of the Iran war. [1, 2] The bank's markets team also said interest in artificial intelligence is growing, including a tool that lets customers quickly sift through 10 years of research. [1]
JPMorgan reported a first-quarter trading haul of US$11.6 billion, an all-time high and 20% higher than a year earlier. [1, 2] The bank also said the volatility has helped prime-brokerage businesses that lend hedge funds cash and securities to support trades. [1, 2]
Wall Street trading desks have stayed on a hot streak since Donald Trump won the 2024 election, according to the reports. [1, 2] On 2026-05-12, Business Times said Matthieu Wiltz told Bloomberg TV that it had been a booming quarter and that it was the first time he could recall such a big conflict having limited market impact. [2] JPMorgan executives were in Paris this week for the annual conference, and Citigroup said this month it aims to lift its prime-brokerage balances to more than US$700 billion by 2028. [1, 2]
