Goldman Sachs regained its crown as the top investment bank for equities trading in the fourth quarter, ending Morgan Stanley’s three-month period of supremacy over its longtime rival.
On a busy day of results on Wall Street, Goldman and Morgan Stanley both reported a rise in fourth-quarter profits, while BlackRock reported assets under management of over $14tn for the first time.
Goldman reported equities trading revenues of $4.31bn, well ahead of the $3.7bn Morgan Stanley delivered.
In the previous quarter, Morgan Stanley had out-earned Goldman in equities trading for the first time since the end of 2022.
Goldman’s fourth-quarter performance was a record for a stock trading by a bank, very narrowly overtaking the $4.3bn the bank had reported in the second quarter of 2025. It also experienced a boom in its investment banking division, logging the biggest backlog of deals in four years, as companies take advantage of a more permissive US regulatory environment.
“CEOs definitely believe that the art of the deal and scaled consolidation is possible now,” said Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon.
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Goldman Sachs’ profits rose 12 per cent in the fourth quarter, boosted by the end of its Apple credit card partnership, a jump in investment banking and a powerhouse performance by its equities traders.
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Wall Street rival Morgan Stanley reported an 18 per cent increase in profits for the fourth quarter, boosted by gains in its investment bank and equities trading business.
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BlackRock reported its biggest quarterly inflows in the company’s history, pushing assets under management above $14tn for the first time.
