American banks are busy this week reporting earnings for the first half of 2024. While many of the nation’s largest banks, including JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup shared their results on Friday, Goldman Sachs was the first to report following the assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump over the weekend.
Kicking off an earnings call where he announced growth in Goldman’s global banking and markets and asset wealth management sections, CEO David Solomon told investors he was grateful the former President was safe and offered condolences to the families of those who were killed, calling the assassination attempt a sad moment for our country.
“We cannot afford division and distrust to get the better of us,” said Solomon. “I truly hope this is a moment that will spur reflection and action, that celebrate that celebrate what unites us as citizens and as a society.”
Following the attempted assassination, the markets are showing similar resilience that they did in the aftermath of the 1981 attempted assassination of former President Ronald Reagan. As the first day of trading since the attempted assassination of Trump kicked off U.S. treasuries and the S&P 500 Index fell only slightly, while bitcoin increased more than it has since last month.
The assassination attempt on Trump occurred Saturday, July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania when a gunman fired multiple shots, hitting Donald Trump in the right ear, killing one and injuring two others. The gunman was shot and killed at the scene. The attack bears a striking similarly to the March 1981 attempt on former President Ronald Reagan, which is credited with helping cement him as a “mythic figure.” In the aftermath of the attempt on Reagan’s life, the S&P 500 remained stable at about $469, before falling to $366 the following May, according to data from Macrotrends, and kicking off a bull market that lasted until the dot-com bubble nearly twenty years later.
The so-called “Trump trade” based on expectations of Republican dominance as a result of the failed assassination attempt is already gaining momentum, according to a Fortune report this weekend. The yield on 2-year treasury bonds fell the most to 4.46% as of 10:25am ET. Three months treasury yield fell to 5.33% while 30-year yields increased to 4.46%. Bitcoin is up 3.59% today to 62,989.
During the Goldman Sachs investor call this morning, David Solomon went onto relate that the bank produced a 10.9% return on equity for the second quarter and a 12.8% return on equity for the first half of the year. Yesterday, JP Morgan’s CEO Jaime Dimon sent an email to employees seen by Fortune expressing condolences and well wishes, calling for a “constructive dialogue” to tackle the nation’s challenges.
“We must all stand firmly together against any acts of hate, intimidation or violence that seek to undermine our democracy or inflict harm,” he wrote. On Friday JP Morgan published its second quarter results, showing a return on equity of 23%, up from a ROE of 17% last quarter.
The statements from David Solomon and Jamie Dimon follow on a separate statement on Saturday, the day of the attempt from the Business Roundtable, a non-profit lobbying association of which both executives are members calling on Americans to “reject political violence and to commit to resolving political differences peacefully.”
Other American banking leaders who are members of the Roundtable include Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, Citgroup CEO Jane Fraser, BNY Mellon CEO Robin Vince, State Street CEO Ronald O’Hanley, U.S. Bank CEO Andrew Cecere, and Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf.
On Friday, Well Fargo’s shared its ROE of 11.5%, and Citi shared an ROE of 6.3%. Bank of America and State Street are both scheduled to share earnings calls on July 16, while U.S. Bank’s investor call is scheduled for July 17.
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Michael del Castillo
