Wall Street Trading and Investment Banking Profits Seen Topping $90B, Bonuses at Record High

The signal here is the scale of the beat: profits are running well ahead of last year's record, and the comptroller ties that momentum directly to bonus pools, which matters for New York's tax base as much as for bank employees. It also implies trading and dealmaking revenue is broadening beyond the usual few desks, since the estimate covers NYSE member firms as a group. Whether that first-half momentum holds through the rest of the year is the open question, given how sensitive these books are to volatility and issuance windows.