Morgan Stanley headquarters in New York
Morgan Stanley and rival JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised a combined $14 billion in the U.S. investment-grade market today, the first two of Wall Street’s six biggest banks to tap primary debt markets after reporting first-quarter earnings. Morgan Stanley offered four notes totaling $8 billion, while JPMorgan sold $6 billion in two parts, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified as the details are private. Both firms dropped a six-year floating-rate tranche during the marketing process.
The longest portion of the banks’ deals, an 11-year security, yields 1.28 percentage points above Treasuries for Morgan Stanley and 1.2 percentage points for JPMorgan, the people said. Initial price discussions for both bonds were about 1.45 percentage points.
Recommended For You
Bank of New York Mellon, meanwhile, raised $2.5 billion in three parts.
All in, five high-grade issuers priced $18 billion total during today’s session, easily surpassing the volume seen in the entire first two weeks of April, as companies capitalize on a sense of calm across risk assets to sell new debt. Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. may follow suit and borrow from the bond market in coming days.
Big banks always need fresh funds for their own lending, and they typically issue debt after reporting quarterly results. This time around, they are having to navigate fragile credit markets with limited windows of issuance and wider spreads. But Wall Street’s top banks are also benefiting from the turbulence ignited by President Donald Trump’s policy U-turns. Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan reported record equity trading revenue for the quarter, while Goldman’s revenue set an all-time high.
Still, executives have been taking a cautious tone during their earnings calls, with David Solomon of Goldman Sachs warning of the dangers under the Trump administration’s tariff policy whiplash. “The uncertainty around the path forward, and fears over the potentially escalating effects of a trade war, have created material risks” to the United States and the global economy, he told investors Monday.
Amid the fears of a downturn, banks are seeing better-than-expected revenue, in-line net interest income, stringent cost controls, and—most important—very few signs of credit-quality weakness, JPMorgan strategists Kabir Caprihan and Vincent Barretta wrote in a note Friday. They are predicting $32 billion of new issuance from the biggest banks, post–earnings calls. “We think banks are getting prepared for a weaker environment, but we highlight that current reserve levels reflect an economic environment that is much weaker than expected,” they wrote. “We expect post-earnings issuance to be relatively heavy.”
Average bank bond spreads widened to 122 basis points (bps) this past Tuesday, the highest since December 2023, before tightening to end the week at 120 bps, according to a Bloomberg index. At the current level, it’s still attractive for lenders to access the market, added JPMorgan analysts.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Arnold Kakuda expects issuance from the Big Six to be more tempered in April following a very active January, as many accelerated new borrowing ahead of all the policy swings. “While banks are not immune from tariffs, their solid trading results and healthy capital buffers provide a shield versus trade wars,” said Kakuda.
Syndicate desks have slightly lowered their overall issuance projection for the week, from $25 billion to $20 billion, with some companies over the weekend said to have opted to delay their capital-raising efforts until after Easter as confusion on tariffs builds, wrote Bloomberg’s Michael Gambale.
————————————————————
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
