Wall Street's AI investment feast set another record! Morgan Stanley's (MS.US) Q2 stock trading business hit a record high of US$6.3 billion
The Zhitong Finance App learned that the latest results announced by Wall Street financial giant Morgan Stanley (MS.US) showed that the company's stock trading business greatly exceeded Wall Street analysts' expectations and once again set a quarterly record, further reaping the rich second-quarter benefits brought to the entire financial industry by active stock market trading and continued sharp fluctuations.
According to a statement released by the company on Wednesday, Morgan Stanley's second-quarter stock trading business revenue reached US$6.3 billion, an increase of 69%, surpassing the record for the highest quarter in history set in the first quarter. The company's much-publicized wealth management business also received $148.1 billion in net additional assets, far higher than Wall Street analysts' unanimous expectations.
Morgan Stanley's results put an end to the second-quarter earnings season for America's biggest commercial banking giants such as Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citibank. The second quarter was an extremely strong quarter for Wall Street. J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs Group, Bank of America, and Citigroup all surpassed Wall Street analysts' expectations and reached record highs.
The performance and outlook of Wall Street's four financial giants, which were recently released on Tuesday, shows that the boom in artificial intelligence investment has been upgraded from a semiconductor industry cycle to a supercycle of unprecedented capital formation: hyperscale cloud vendors, data center operators, AI application unicorns, and chip giants need to continuously transform huge capital expenses into deliverable computing power through corporate bonds, stock issuance, mergers and acquisitions, project loans, and structured financing. Wall Street banking giants earn income from underwriting, consulting, financing, and the market market in every step, as well as earn unprecedented revenue AI Investment Boom The huge revenue associated with stock trading is behind the global stock market frenzy.
Wall Street's AI financing feast set another record, SpaceX listing ignites underwriting dividends
After SpaceX, the “AI+ Space Exploration” supertech giant founded by Musk, completed a record initial public offering in the US stock market, investment banking fees also became the focus of attention. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs co-led this large-scale US stock offering for SpaceX. In the second quarter. Morgan Stanley's stock underwriting fees reached US$851 million, an increase of 70% over the same period last year, driving total investment banking fees to approximately US$2.44 billion.
M&A bankers received approximately $798 million in processing fees, while the bond underwriting business generated $788 million in revenue. That is, in the second quarter, Morgan Stanley received US$798 million in handling revenue by providing financial advisory services for corporate mergers and acquisitions; at the same time, it obtained US$788 million in underwriting revenue by helping companies or institutions issue debt securities such as bonds, which is enough to show that the three capital market business lines of corporate mergers and acquisitions, debt issuance financing, and stock financing recovered strongly at the same time.
It is worth noting that the former (merger and acquisition) includes consulting services such as transaction valuation research and calculation, finding a buyer or seller, negotiation, and transaction execution; the latter includes designing a bond structure, determining the issuance price, organizing investors to subscribe and complete distribution. It is not the interest income obtained from Morgan Stanley's own loans, nor is it the principal amount of the merger and acquisition transaction or bond issuance.
As of Tuesday, Morgan Stanley shares have risen 28% this year; the stock rose 1% in pre-market trading on Wednesday in the New York stock market.
Morgan Stanley's wealth management business achieved net revenue of US$8.86 billion, significantly higher than market expectations. The company launched cryptocurrency trading in the second quarter through its e*Trade innovative financial management platform and competed for market share at lower pricing than major competitors.
The quality of growth shown in Morgan Stanley's latest quarterly results showed a rare multi-engine resonance. Net revenue from the institutional securities business increased 44% to US$11.04 billion, and profit before tax doubled to US$4.262 billion; total revenue related to the stock business increased 69% to a record US$6.3 billion, fixed income business increased 13% to US$2,455 billion, and investment banking business increased 58% to US$2,437 million, of which stock underwriting revenue increased 70% to US$851 million, M&A advisory revenue increased 57% to US$798 million, and bond underwriting revenue increased by about 48% to US$788 million.
The company's net wealth management revenue for the second quarter increased 14% year over year to US$8.856 billion, profit before tax increased 23% to US$2,697 billion, and profit margin remained at 30.5%; net new assets surged from US$59.2 billion to US$148.1 billion, and wealth management clients' assets reached US$8.08 trillion, up 25% year over year. Together with investment management assets, the average daily turnover of independent transactions increased by 30%, indicating that the wealth effect of IPOs and customer trading activity are simultaneously being transformed into recurring management fees and trading business operations Receive it.
Morgan Stanley Seizes “AI Finance Beta”: Trading, Investment Banking, and Wealth Management Triple Harvest Technological Prosperity
In the second quarter, Morgan Stanley's revenue related to stock trading surged 69% to US$6.3 billion, investment banking fees rose to US$2.44 billion, and net assets added to wealth management reached US$148.1 billion, which together reflect the sharp upward trajectory of technology stocks driven by the unprecedented AI investment boom, and the high-net-worth wealth effects brought about by large-scale technology financing such as SpaceX, market volume, and technological valuation expansion. It is amplifying Morgan Stanley's profit elasticity through the three channels of trading, underwriting, and asset management.
Morgan Stanley delivered a strong financial report in the second quarter that overall revenue, profit, return on capital investment, and operating efficiency completely exceeded expectations. Net revenue reached a record high of US$21.348 billion, up 27% year on year, about 8% higher than market expectations of US$19.7 billion; earnings per share of US$3.46, up 62% year on year, about 18% higher than the agreed estimate of US$2.93; net profit attributable to Morgan Stanley increased 58% to US$5.581 billion, and profit before tax increased 59% to US$7.348 billion.
More importantly, Morgan Stanley's second-quarter profit margin before tax rose from 28% to 34%, the cost efficiency ratio fell from 71% to 65%, and the return on tangible common equity jumped from 18.2% to 26.6%, which is enough to show that the overall revenue growth rate significantly exceeded cost expansion, creating real operating leverage rather than relying on a single accounting revenue to surpass expectations.
In the context of this unprecedented boom in AI investment that has taken the global stock market by storm, from a profit perspective, Wall Street financial giants can be called the biggest winners other than chip giants such as Nvidia and TSMC.
Statistics on the capital flow of the US-listed ETF and exchange-traded products (ETP) industry show that in the first half of 2026, global ETF capital inflows set a record of 1 trillion US dollars, and stock ETFs absorbed 680 billion US dollars. The technology, energy and industry sectors became the main direction of ETF capital inflows in the industry; the latest statistics from BlackRock, the world's largest asset management giant, recorded a record net global capital inflow of US$321 billion in the first half of this year. The cumulative net inflow of its long-term investment funds was 1990 billion US dollars, which was higher than the average estimate of about 170 billion US dollars by Wall Street analysts. BlackRock's exchange-traded fund business (ETF business) absorbed approximately US$178 billion, accounting for the vast majority of the new capital flowing into the asset management giant, while cash and money market funds recorded a net outflow of US$7 billion.
According to the BlackRock research team's forecast report, global technology companies, including US tech giants, will still need to invest about 5 trillion to 8 trillion US dollars in AI computing power infrastructure-related capital on a large scale by 2030, and clearly states that no matter what type of model or AI application model wins, AI data center computing power infrastructure assets such as electricity, memory/storage, AI chips, data center CPUs and optical interconnection systems are indispensable and scarce resources.
Similar to Wall Street financial giants such as Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley has indeed captured its high sensitivity to the supercycle and wealth effects of AI capital. The expansion of demand for AI computing power is driving the AI investment boom, the listing of technology companies, stock issuance, mergers and acquisitions, convertible bonds, and corporate bond financing. Morgan Stanley earns the first tier of fees through underwriting, market making, main broker business, and risk management business; technology asset appreciation and IPOs import the wealth of founders, employees, and investors into its workplace equity plans and wealth management platforms, forming a second-tier management fee compound. The SpaceX listing and other major tech deals have further amplified this transmission. At the investment level, Morgan Stanley should be viewed more as a high-quality financial leverage and capital market charging platform for the AI supercycle, rather than traditional bank stocks that can independently take safe haven when the AI boom cycle recedes.