Wall Street Banks Dominate AI Trading Boom
Left 100%
Center 0%
Right 0%
3 left · 0 center · 0 right
What happened
The five largest U.S. investment banks generated about $67 billion in equities trading revenue through Sept. 30, according to company filings, $7 billion more than the group’s full-year 2025 total. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley together accounted for $52 billion, or nearly 80 percent of that figure. Goldman Sachs reported that equities financing rose 96 percent in the third quarter to a record $3.37 billion; JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley described a similar pattern without a matching breakout. Bank executives linked the surge to hedge-fund demand for leverage on artificial-intelligence stocks and to 2025 changes that eased leverage rules for the largest U.S. banks. Separately, Goldman Sachs launched a Small Business AI Institute as part of a $500 million expansion of its 10,000 Small Businesses program, partnering with Google, Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta.
Sourcing check · Mostly on the record · 3 articles
2 of 3 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 2 of 3
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Mike Mayo, Jeremy Barnum, Goldman Sachs, David Solomon and Sam Altman
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 2 of 3
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: company filings, company data, federal disclosures
- Credits another outlet 0 of 3
- The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
- Unnamed sources 0 of 3
- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Oct 21, 15:30 UTC by CNBC, naming its source. First document in the first report, from CNBC (company filings).
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
ONE-SIDED THIS WEEK.
Only left-leaning outlets have covered this story in the last two days;
New York Post reported it on 2026-10-13.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Right-leaning coverage has not reported the story at all, so those readers miss that Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley have taken nearly 80% of Wall Street's equities-trading revenue this year. Left-leaning coverage, by contrast, ties that haul to hedge-fund leverage and to capital rules that were eased for the largest banks. A reader of the silent side never sees either the concentration of the boom or the regulatory change that expanded prime-broker balance sheets.
Left-leaning outlets split on the lead: CNBC opens on a "banner year" for equities desks, while NBC News never cites those totals and instead follows Goldman's Small Business AI Institute. The trading-profit story therefore exists in only one of those accounts.
How much of that dominance would remain if the 2025 capital-rule easing were reversed?
Bottom line
A reader who never opened CNBC would not know Goldman, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley have already booked $52 billion in stock-trading revenue this year after regulators eased leverage rules for their prime brokers.
The receipts — 3 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Equities financing activities at Goldman Sachs jumped 96% in the third quarter to a record $3.37 billion
- Trump administration regulators eased some leverage rules for the largest U.S. banks; the revised rules were finalized in 2025 and banks were allowed to adopt them as early as January
- The IMF warned that growing leverage, crowded positions and correlated selling from hedge funds could create potential stability risks
The Left View
CNBC reports that Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley have captured nearly 80 percent of a record equities-trading haul, framing their edge as scale in prime brokerage, balance-sheet capacity for large leveraged AI bets, and Asia trading in semiconductor supply-chain names. It cites earnings-call comments from JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum and others on insatiable demand for capital, notes that 2025 rule changes treated collateralized prime loans more leniently, and records IMF and analyst warnings about hedge-fund leverage even as executives say summer unwinds were absorbed. NBC News covers Goldman’s Main Street AI push, quoting CEO David Solomon and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, while reporting public unease over regulation, data-center costs, jobs and cybersecurity. The Verge reports that Nvidia, Anthropic and OpenAI each posted record third-quarter lobbying outlays of about $2.2 million, $2.1 million and $1.5 million on AI safety, export controls, energy costs and related bills.
Our Take (balanced)
The core revenue story is substantive: it rests on company filings, named executives on earnings calls, and identified analysts rather than a single uncorroborated source. The $67 billion and $52 billion totals, Goldman’s $3.37 billion financing figure, the 2025 leverage-rule change, and federal lobbying disclosures are checkable. Interpretive claims—that the business has become a durable lending engine, that smaller banks cannot compete, or that Asia totals are inflated by stamp taxes—are attributed to executives and analysts, not independently proven. Systemic-risk language is mixed: the IMF warned about leverage and crowded positions and estimated $13 trillion in hedge-fund assets; Jamie Dimon said industry leverage was the highest it had ever been but did not call it a market threat. Those statements are on the record; whether they amount to a stability problem is not established. No right-leaning outlet has reported this. Watch Q4 bank filings, any official follow-up to the IMF warning, and consistent definitions of equities revenue across firms.
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