With record levels of dry powder available for investment, find out what's in store for private markets in 2025 and beyond.

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Hey listeners, it's Wednesday, January 22nd. I'm Chip Cutter for the Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News and Earnings.

Last earnings season, we tried something new, a look at the big themes that stood out in corporate

earnings reports, and the response we got was so overwhelmingly positive that we're going

to make it a regular fixture in the What's News feed.

Each earnings season will have a number of episodes looking at what corporate reports and analyst calls can tell us

about what's going on under the hood of the American economy.

Starting today with banks.

Big banks unofficially kicked off the earnings season, giving us insights into consumer borrowing, investors' trading habits, the M&A outlook, and more.

Wall Street Journal banking reporter Alexander Saeedy spent some time analyzing the results of companies like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and more.

He's here now to help explain what stood out and what's on the horizon.

Hi, Alex.

Hey, Chip.

All right, so some of the country's biggest banks ended the year with bumper profits.

Those firms with Wall Street arms really seem to do particularly well.

So what explains their big profit growth?

The Wall Street businesses did really well in the last three months of 24, but also really

over the full year, one, because companies are finally getting more confidence to borrow, spend,

and invest in their businesses again, but also in the markets. So all of that is good for the

investment banking business, because that's more fees, that's more transactions.

And then on the trading side, you saw a lot of volatility, especially in the last three months, because of the election.

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