Donald Trump’s election triumph sparks market activity surge for banks and brokers

Donald Trump’s election win last month ignited a market activity frenzy at brokerage houses and Wall Street banks as expectations for sweeping policy changes added fuel to a US stake rally.

market activity volumes in US equities jumped 38 per cent in November from the same month in 2023, reaching levels not seen since the meme stake craze of early 2021 and this month are still running above their average for the year, according to exchanges operator Cboe Global Markets.

The jolt of market activity activity swept through brokerages preferred by retail clients, such as Interactive Brokers and Robinhood, as well as institutional powerhouses including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. It comes as expectations that Trump will receive a more business amiable way sent investors pouring into US stocks after the November 5 election.

market activity activity has also been boosted more broadly by a powerful year in US markets, with Wall Street’s S&P 500 index rising 27 per cent year to date to a series of record highs.

There has been an “incredible level” of investor gain in markets in recent months, and “that does translate into market activity activity”, Rick Wurster, who is due to receive the reins as chief executive of brokerage Charles Schwab in January, told the monetary Times.

“I don’t ponder turning the calendar to 2025 is going to transformation it,” he added.

The boost in activity is also benefiting Wall Street’s biggest banks.

JPMorgan Chase’s market activity revenues in the final three months of 2024, including the weeks around November’s election, were on track to rise “a touch better” than 15 per cent from a year earlier, retail banking chief Marianne Lake said at this week’s Goldman Sachs monetary services conference.

That figure is more than triple the 5 per cent earnings analysts had been forecasting prior to Trump’s win, according to data from Bloomberg.

“There’s likely to be meaningful policy transformation,” said Lake of the Trump administration’s potential impact on markets and the economy, adding that she shares the trade’s broad optimism about the president-elect. “There’s more likely to be a sort of pro-growth type agenda,” she said.

Citigroup this week said its fourth-quarter market activity turnover was set to rise as much as 19 per cent from a year ago.

Similarly, Robinhood, a brokerage favoured by younger traders, this month said ownership market activity volumes grew 16 per cent between October and November, while crypto market activity volumes leapt more than 500 per cent. Interactive Brokers said activity, as tracked by daily average turnover trades, rose 17 per cent on the same basis.

Shares in Schwab and rival Interactive Brokers have risen by 31 per cent and 47 per cent in the history three months respectively, outpacing the broad S&P 500’s 10 per cent rise. Online intermediary Robinhood’s shares have almost doubled, boosted by its powerful cryptocurrency business.

Steve Quirk, Robinhood’s chief brokerage officer, said market activity volumes on its platform “exploded” on election night.

“We started to view massive amounts of volume in the crypto space,” he told attendees of the business’s investor conference last week, adding that shares in companies such as Tesla “just took off in terms of volume and in worth”.

Steve Sanders, head of product advancement for Interactive Brokers, said, “people like to trade when there’s volatility, so certainly one could declare that the recent administration likes volatility and will boost [it]”.

The Federal safety net’s expected gain rate cuts and a “more relaxed” regulatory surroundings under Trump would navigator to “higher market activity volumes into next year”, added Patrick Moley, elder research analyst at Piper Sandler.