00:00It was a record year, 2025. And what does that mean for not just the industry, but for the city
00:05of New York? This is a city that is benefiting from the rise in bonus pools, in just overall
00:13salaries, which posted their strongest performance last year. And that's despite the tensions that
00:21already were bubbling up and have continued this year. Clearly, I think the most noteworthy
00:27takeaway from this report, this is a report that comes from DiNapoli each year. He's pointing
00:34to more skepticism ahead. He says, however, we are seeing slower job growth and geopolitical
00:39conflicts, which have global repercussions that pose extraordinary risks for short and
00:44long-term outlook on the financial sector and for broader economic markets. So it's an interesting
00:51dichotomy here. You have, on the one hand, ending 2025 on such a high note, but he's pointing
00:57to a lot of skepticism of what's ahead. And bankers ultimately entered 2026 with a windfall.
01:07They had their best trading year and M&A was a rebound that had been long projected and finally
01:15started to come through. The big question mark when we start hearing from the banks in April
01:20and when they're going to be reporting their numbers following Jeffries is, does that momentum
01:25continue? We expect trading to continue because of how high volatility and volumes have been,
01:31especially with equity trading. But M&A is the big question mark. The start of the year started
01:37up pretty strong. But now with a lot of the uncertainty and the war breaking out a few weeks ago,
01:43we could start to see some pullback from that. And what that does to the overall numbers remains to be
01:49seen.
01:49it's not, it's not nice to me.
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