The Short Answer
- Headline EPS tells you how the bank did. It does not tell you whether your group is hiring.
- Five lines do: IB fees by product, the compensation line, headcount, pipeline commentary and AI or efficiency remarks.
- Read every number against the bar the bank set for itself. This quarter, JPMorgan guided IB fees and markets revenue up mid-to-high teens, while Bank of America guided IB fees to $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion, down from $2 billion a year ago.
- Product mix matters more than the total. Advisory, equity and debt fees each point to different seats.
- Total headcount is the least useful number on its own. The mix underneath it is where the hiring signal sits.
- This is a framework, so you can reuse it every quarter.
Third-quarter bank earnings start Tuesday, Oct. 13. Most bankers will glance at the headline, see “beat” or “miss,” and move on. That is a mistake if you are thinking about a lateral move, waiting on a bonus number or trying to read whether your group will add seats in 2027.
An earnings release and the call that follows are the most detailed public view you will get of how a bank is thinking about its people. You just have to know which lines to read. Here is how we read them.
| Date | Bank | Results (ET) | Call (ET) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, Oct. 13 | JPMorgan Chase | About 7:00 a.m. | 8:30 a.m. |
| Tuesday, Oct. 13 | Wells Fargo | About 7:00 a.m. | 10:00 a.m. |
| Tuesday, Oct. 13 | Goldman Sachs | About 7:30 a.m. | 9:30 a.m. |
| Tuesday, Oct. 13 | Citigroup | About 8:00 a.m. | 11:00 a.m. |
| Wednesday, Oct. 14 | Bank of America | About 6:45 a.m. | 8:30 a.m. |
| Wednesday, Oct. 14 | Morgan Stanley | About 7:30 a.m. | 9:30 a.m. |
Times are from each bank’s investor relations announcement. The release gives you the numbers; the call, an hour or more later, gives you the commentary.
1. Start With the Bar the Bank Set
A number only means something against an expectation, and at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference in mid-September, two banks gave us very different ones.
- Bank of America (Sept. 14). CEO Brian Moynihan said third-quarter IB fees would be $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion, compared with $2 billion a year earlier. That is a decline of 10% to 20%. He said the broader investment banking market was down about 10% and BofA would probably fall a bit more, and he expected sales and trading revenue to be roughly flat against $5.4 billion a year ago. He still described pipelines as full.
- JPMorgan (Sept. 15). Co-president Doug Petno said he expected investment banking fees and markets revenue to be up mid-to-high teens from a year earlier, Reuters and Bloomberg reported. “We started this quarter with a strong pipeline that continues,” he said, describing M&A activity as “as high as we’ve seen in some time.”
So the same market produced a strong forecast at one bank and a weak one at another. That is the first lesson: do not read the sector from one print. A bank that beats its own guidance is in a different hiring posture from one that merely meets a low bar.
For context, the bar is high. In the second quarter, Goldman’s investment banking fees rose 55% to $3.40 billion, and JPMorgan’s rose 30% to $3.3 billion, its highest level since 2021, according to the banks’ earnings releases. Year-over-year comparisons get harder from here.
2. IB Fees by Product: Which Seats, Not Just How Many
Every big bank breaks investment banking fees into advisory, equity underwriting and debt underwriting. The split tells you far more than the total.
- Advisory is M&A. Strength here supports coverage and M&A execution teams, and because advisory fees are booked when deals close, it reflects work done months earlier.
- Equity underwriting is IPOs, follow-ons and converts. ECM staffing is notoriously cyclical, so a strong equity quarter is often the fastest-moving hiring signal on the page.
- Debt underwriting covers investment-grade, high-yield and leveraged loans. Leveraged finance strength usually means sponsors are active, which matters to anyone with a buy-side exit in mind. Moynihan warned that higher rates could slow financing demand, so watch this line closely at Bank of America.
Goldman’s second quarter shows why the split matters: of $3.40 billion in fees, $1.38 billion came from advisory, $985 million from equity underwriting and $1.03 billion from debt underwriting. JPMorgan said its growth was double-digit across all products, led by equity underwriting.
What to look for: which product drove the beat or the miss, and whether management calls it a timing issue or a trend. A miss in advisory with a strong backlog is a delay. A miss with a shrinking backlog is a warning.
3. The Compensation Line: Where the Bonus Pool Hides
Compensation and benefits is usually the largest expense line, and it is the closest thing to a live read on bonus accruals. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley talk openly about their compensation ratio, compensation as a share of net revenue, and analysts will press the others on it. For what that means in dollars, see What Investment Bankers Can Actually Expect to Earn in 2026.
- Comp growing more slowly than revenue means operating leverage. In the second quarter, Goldman’s net revenue rose 39% to $20.34 billion while compensation and benefits rose 30% to $6.10 billion, about 30% of revenue. That usually means the bank is paying top producers well while holding the line on everyone else, not lifting every seat.
- A year-to-date comp accrual that runs ahead of last year is the best early signal of a bigger bonus pool, well before numbers are communicated in January.
- Severance or restructuring charges sometimes sit inside this line or next to it. A charge tells you cuts are planned, even if no number is announced.
- The expense explanation. JPMorgan’s second-quarter release said expenses rose 15%, “predominantly driven by higher compensation,” including “growth in the number of front office employees.” One clause like that tells you more about hiring than the total.
4. Headcount: Read the Mix, Not the Total
Banks disclose total employees each quarter, usually in the financial supplement rather than the press release. As we wrote in Record Profits, Deeper Cuts, the total is the least useful number on its own.
- Bloomberg reported that the big banks cut more than 10,000 jobs in the second quarter, despite a record trading quarter.
- Goldman ended the second quarter with 46,200 employees, down 2% from the first quarter, in the same quarter its IB fees rose 55%.
- Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said headcount had declined for 24 consecutive quarters, to 197,000, down 3,500 from the prior quarter. In the same remarks he listed “investment bankers, and traders” among the roles the bank is adding, along with branch bankers and relationship managers.
- JPMorgan’s CFO, Jeremy Barnum, cited “growth in front office hiring” as an expense driver.
What to look for: any division-level detail, and any comment from the CFO on where the bank is adding people. Front-office growth inside a flat or falling total is the most bullish hiring signal you will find in a release.
5. Pipeline Commentary: The Forward-Looking Line
Fees tell you about deals that already closed. The pipeline tells you about next year’s staffing, and it usually shows up on the call rather than in the release.
Listen for the word “backlog.” Goldman’s second-quarter release said its investment banking fee backlog increased from both the end of the first quarter and the end of 2025. On JPMorgan’s July call, Barnum said “the pipeline is actually quite robust.” Also listen for how executives describe it: “healthy,” “building” and “elevated” mean different things, and a CEO who stops volunteering pipeline color is telling you something too.
The analyst Q&A is often more revealing than the prepared remarks. If several analysts ask about the same weak spot, that is where the market is worried.
6. AI and Efficiency Remarks: Where the Cuts Will Land
Every bank now talks about AI and efficiency on its calls. The remarks are worth parsing because they usually name functions.
- On JPMorgan’s July call, CEO Jamie Dimon said: “We have had discrete areas where we did reduce jobs by 30% or 40%. And most of those people were offered jobs elsewhere.” He also said: “You don’t uniquely benefit from AI. The ultimate beneficiary of AI will be our customers.”
- On Wells Fargo’s July call, CFO Mike Santomassimo said the bank expects it “should be able to run this company” with “less headcount than we have got today,” and that “technology and AI” help it get there faster.
So far, as we covered in Record Profits, Deeper Cuts, the efficiency talk has pointed at operations and support functions rather than deal teams. The signal to watch for is whether that language starts to reach analyst classes, research or coverage. If a bank names a front-office function, take note.
The Recruiter’s Scorecard
| Line | Where to find it | Hiring signal | Caution signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| IB fees by product | Press release, segment tables | Beat on guidance, driven by advisory or ECM | Miss with a shrinking backlog |
| Compensation | Expense table, comp ratio on the call | Accruals ahead of last year | Severance or restructuring charges |
| Headcount | Financial supplement | Front-office growth inside a flat total | Cuts named in client-facing groups |
| Pipeline | Earnings call and Q&A | “Backlog up,” specific sectors named | Vague or missing pipeline color |
| AI and efficiency | Earnings call | Savings reinvested in revenue roles | Efficiency language reaching deal teams |
What This Means for You
Bankers thinking about a lateral move. Read the product split for the bank you want to join, not just its total. A strong ECM quarter at a firm with a strong ECM franchise is a better signal than a strong total driven by a group you do not work in.
Bankers waiting on a bonus. Watch the year-to-date compensation accrual and the tone around operating leverage. That is the earliest public signal of how the pool is shaping up.
Students and juniors. Headcount mix and AI remarks matter most to you. If a bank describes analyst work as an efficiency target, expect tighter classes.
Everyone. Compare each bank against its own guidance, and against its peers by product. A great quarter at one firm and a soft one at another is a normal outcome in a market this split, and it is exactly the kind of gap that creates lateral openings.
The Bottom Line
Earnings season is the best free hiring data on Wall Street, but only if you look past the headline. Read the product split, the comp line, the headcount mix, the pipeline color and the efficiency language, and read each against the bar the bank set. We will be watching the same five lines on Oct. 13 and 14, and we will update this guide each quarter.
Related Reading
- What Investment Bankers Can Actually Expect to Earn in 2026
- Record Profits, Deeper Cuts: Where Wall Street Is Actually Shrinking in 2026
- Investment Banking Bonus Announcements and Payout Dates
- Lazard’s Not So Quiet Signal: Why Senior Bankers Everywhere Should Be Paying Attention
Sources
- Earnings dates and times: investor relations announcements from JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley
- “Bank of America CEO sees at least 10% drop in 3Q investment banking fees” (Sept. 15, 2026)
- Reuters, “JPMorgan expects investment banking, trading to shine in third quarter” (Sept. 15, 2026); Bloomberg, “JPMorgan Sees Third-Quarter Investment Bank, Trading Gains” (Sept. 15, 2026)
- Goldman Sachs second-quarter 2026 earnings results
- JPMorgan Chase second-quarter 2026 earnings release and earnings call transcript (July 14, 2026)
- Wells Fargo second-quarter 2026 earnings call transcript (July 2026)
- Bloomberg, “Wall Street Banks’ Record Quarter Didn’t Slow Their Job Cuts” (July 2026)
- Prospect Rock Partners, “Record Profits, Deeper Cuts” (Aug. 1, 2026)