My 2c on Financials: US Financials Sector Specialist Commentary Banks • Insurance • Diversified Financials

Research evidence excerpt

My 2c on Financials: US Financials Sector Specialist Commentary Banks • Insurance • Diversified Financials

Rob O'Dwyer - Specialist Sales - US Financials AC North America Specialist Sales J P M O R G A Nrob.odwyer@jpmorgan.com

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC 09 July 2026

My 2c on Financials

Rob O’Dwyer

+1 2126222673

rob.odwyer@jpmorgan.com

Key Highlights

• STEP - Good risk/reward

• Wealth Management setup

• Alts vs Trads

Morning – newsflow is light this morning and I guess crude is telling us that Middle East turbulence may well be short lived?

Clearly financials didn’t enjoy the move in crude/rates much yesterday and few were spared in the sell off. As it stands, my

hypothesis that the market could be more willing to seek security in info services has certainly been incorrect but it will be

interesting to see how these themes evolve into numbers. REMINDER: Steinerman hosting lunch today here at JPM in

midtown, I have a last couple of seats available there, so if you’d like to join let me know.

I noted earlier in the week that investors seem to want to focus on ideas away from the banks. I thought SCHW outperformance

yesterday was notable in that regard, given the inauspicious year that wealth managers have had. I think that there is a low bar for

wealth managers into prints and I suspect that inline organic NNA growth prints for the likes of SCHW and LPLA will be viewed

with relief and could catalyze a rerating in the shares.

Of course, the alts industry is adjacent to the wealth industry and with that in mind Ken has a deep dive on STEP this morning

and, in particular, their proposed acquisition of the Stepstone Private Wealth (SPW) business that they don’t yet own. The key