US investment banking expected to stay in the doldrums

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0:33Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Monday, July 14th, and this is your FT News Briefing. The EU delays imposing tariffs on the US. Investment banking on Wall Street is still feeling the pain. Plus, it's been 10 years since Greece's economy was in dire strays. We take a look at how it turned things around. I'm Persis Love, and here's the news you need to start your day.

1:08The EU is pausing plans to hit the US with tariffs. It hopes to reach a new trade agreement instead. The European Union had planned to impose 21 billion euros worth of tariffs on US goods starting this Tuesday. But then, this weekend, US President Donald Trump said he would slap the bloc with 30 % tariffs beginning August 1st. So now the EU is delaying its levies. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said they would prefer a negotiated solution with the US.

1:48Looks like there's going to be another bad quarter for US investment banking. For the 14th quarter in a row, analysts are predicting investment banking will make up less than 25 % of Wall Street revenues at the biggest US banks. Meanwhile, trading is flourishing. We'll get the final figures this week when major US banks report their earnings, but here to give us a preview is the FT's Joshua Franklin. Hi, Josh. Hi there. Okay, so give me the details then. What are you expecting to see in earnings reports this week? So really, it's a bit of feast and famine for Wall Street businesses at these large banks.

2:27So if you think about Wall Street activities at large US banks, we're talking JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, they make money on Wall Street from both trading and investment banking. And really, we've had this spectacular run over the last four or five years now for trading, where these volatile financial markets have been incredibly lucrative for the big banks. But it's been a much, much patchier side of things on the investment banking side of the house, especially over the last three years with rising interest rates and the same uncertainty creating these volatile markets really dampening activity in the boardroom in terms of feeling confident to do acquisitions and take companies public.

3:06So we're going to see a real continuation of this trend of just trading, making a lot of money for these big banks, but investment banking still being pretty muted. Okay, so investment banking is not doing so good, but the trading side is doing better. Why is that the case? It's interesting because in the last three years, you've had rising interest rates, you've had geopolitical conflicts in the Ukraine and the Middle East, and then Donald Trump's return to the White House and his policies on tariffs and trade. And that's created an enormous amount of market volatility that has been very lucrative for the big banks.

3:41They facilitate and finance a lot of this trading. And so that's really boosted them. So tell me more. Why are the investment banking sides underperforming? Yes. So if you think about investment banking is based a lot of time on confidence about the direction of the economy. People have to feel confident about buying a company, selling a company at the right price, taking a company public. And you've seen the certainty in terms of the environment to do those sorts of transactions just has been much patchier. You've also had higher borrowing costs, which has made it harder for people to borrow money to do deals.

4:18And then also in the US, certainly, the regulatory environment to get deal approval has been pretty tough. And so all of that has just kind of stunted the investment banking side of things. And what's the bottom line for banks here? I mean, how are they doing overall? So on the whole, I don't think you need to cry for the banks. They're still doing okay. There's still a lot of optimism that investment banking eventually will materialize for some kind of recovery. Profits are probably going to be down on average at the six big banks by assets, but I think they're still at pretty elevated levels relative to where they were before.

4:56And I think there's also some optimism around a kind of slightly lighter touch regulatory environment under the Trump administration for the banks in terms of how stringent the rules are for them. The investment bankers on Wall Street, They're hoping that this dry spell will eventually come to an end. Joshua Franklin is the FT's U.S. banking editor. Thanks, Josh. Thanks very much.

5:22If you want a good economic comeback story, look no further than Greece. Ten years ago, it was having a financial meltdown and was on the verge of exiting the euro. But now, it's exited its bailout program, and it's even outpacing the growth of other richer countries. But there's still some unfinished business in Greece. Here to explain is the FT's Eleni Varvitsioti in Athens. Hi, Eleni. Hi. So, just take us back to the 2015 meltdown. What was going on with Greece's economy? So, maybe we should start a bit earlier, because Greece faced a huge economic crisis back in 2010. The country had to sign to three international bailouts over eight years to stay afloat.

6:08So in 2015, a radical left populist government took over. It's young Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. He said that I'm going to bring you a better deal. I will reject the country's international bailout. He went into six months of negotiations that led to nowhere. That left the country on the brink of exiting the euro. financial meltdown, the banks were closed. It was a step before economic catastrophe. So when Tsipras was faced with this actual economic disaster, he did a somersault, or Kolotuba, as the Greeks call it. And he actually signed a third bailout program for Greece. And this was a new era of Greek compliance.

6:55And actually, he laid the foundations of the recovery. Yeah, and Greece really did have a huge economic turnaround after that. How did the country pull it off? I think first it was a bailout that Greece really reformed its fiscal condition. But then the real progress happened when a center-right government takes over in 2019. And now we're talking about one of the fastest growing economies in the eurozone. And many important reforms took place in these past six years. One was a digital transformation of the public sector, which means that, as you can understand, a sharp reduction in red tape. Another major win has been Greece's progress in tackling tax evasion.

7:41So also the centre-right government did some strides in cleaning up the banking sector. I mean, these are major reforms that have happened in the past years. That all sounds a little too good to be true. Are there any risks that Greece still faces? Yeah, of course, big risks and big issues still. The investment as a share of GDP is still very low. It's still really hard to invest in Greece if you are a foreign company, you have lots of issues. The Greek economy is more based on sectors like tourism and less in high value production, goods, services based on innovation. And what has been very painful here is although, you know, Greece has been growing, wages, especially in the private sector, have not grown as much.

8:31And because of the costs of living, which has increased due to inflation, more than a fourth of Greece's population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. So still, people are having a hard time to make it to the end of the month. And this period of Greece's economy, did it have any sort of impact on the EU as a whole? I think that Greece left a big legacy on the Eurozone as well. I mean, when the crisis hit Greece, the Eurozone was completely unprepared for it. There were no mechanisms. There was no permanent rescue fund. And the legacy of Greece's bailouts underscored the need for EU solidarity and for building a very big recovery fund.

9:17So if there's a future crisis, the Eurozone is much better prepared. It has its own permanent rescue fund. It has in place a new system for winding up failed banks. Of course, one would say that it's not complete. The Eurozone still has no sizable budget or permanent fund to offset shocks. It has moved significantly, but it's still not a complete union. Eleni Vavitsioti is the FT's Greece and Cyprus correspondent. Thanks, Eleni. Thank you. You can read more on all of these stories for free when you click on the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT news briefing. Check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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