June '26 Capital Markets Monthly: Can You Take Me Higher? To a Place...

Research evidence excerpt

June '26 Capital Markets Monthly: Can You Take Me Higher? To a Place...

Financials | Brokers, Banks & Asset Managers

July 06, 2026

Glenn Schorr, CFA June '26 Capital Markets Monthly: Can You

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glenn.schorr@evercoreisi.com Take Me Higher? To a Place...

Benjamin Rubin, CFA, CPA … where every quarter beats the Street.

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Benjamin.Rubin@evercoreisi.com As Creed said, can you take me higher? Just when you thought

Sam Wardlow things couldn’t get better, it feels like they did in 2Q as equity

212-653-9019 markets made all-time highs, M&A and IPOs were strong,

sam.wardlow@evercoreisi.com trading volumes were even better, the NII backdrop improved,

John Dunn expenses are in check and the big banks & brokers are AI

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John.Dunn@EvercoreISI.com winners, there were no real credit issues and the vast excess

Matthew Lyons, CFA capital continues to be returned. Yes, we continue to deal with

212-336-1709 direct lending redemptions and slow monetizations & fundraising

matthew.lyons@evercoreISI.com in private markets land (hence the divergence in earnings trends

and stocks), but all in, it remains a pretty constructive backdrop

in capital markets with the only other concern being valuations.

Heading into 2Q Earnings. The key question on our mind is

how sustainable this backdrop can be, and we still think there is

room to run in this capital markets cycle. In our view, strong 2Q

results appear well understood by investors, which could create

a sell-the-news reaction around the prints. In light of elevated

expectations, we favor names that have lagged in performance

or trade at a less demanding relative multiple. Across the

Universal Banks, we favor BAC, which has underperformed

YTD despite similar capital markets leverage to peers, while