Brian Chappatta, Columnist

Broken Bond Markets? Biggest Banks Do Just Fine.

The volatility in March was no impediment to a huge increase in fixed-income trading revenue.

April 15, 2020 at 6:16 PM UTC

Brian Chappatta is managing editor of Bloomberg News' leveraged finance and distressed debt teams. He was previously managing editor and team leader of its wealth group. Before that he was a Bloomberg Opinion markets and finance columnist and a bonds reporter for Bloomberg News.

Big banks navigated Treasury turmoil.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

While investors across U.S. bond markets were bedeviled by a lack of liquidity last month during the most volatile days of the coronavirus crisis, the purported culprits were bringing in huge amounts of money.

Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. each reported sharply higher first-quarter revenue from fixed-income, currencies and commodities trading compared with results in the quarter a year earlier. Citigroup led on a year-over-year basis, jumping 39% to $4.79 billion. Goldman Sachs had the biggest gain from the last three months of 2019, with FICC revenue surging by 68% to $2.97 billion.