The Weekend Spread: What‘s Resonating?: US Financials Sector Specialist Commentary Banks • Insurance • Diversified Financials

Research evidence excerpt

The Weekend Spread: What‘s Resonating?: 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 17 July 2026

The Weekend Spread: What’s Resonating?

Rob O’Dwyer

+1 2126222673

rob.odwyer@jpmorgan.com

• Capital Markets Strength

• Nature of Regional Bank EPS momentum

• Trust Banks to be bought on weakness?

Reflecting on a busy week packed with (predominantly) bank earnings, I thought I'd share a few observations on where

things stand across the GSIBs, regionals and trust banks.

The headline for me is that banks increasingly look less dependent on rates and more leveraged to AI investment, capital

markets activity and operating leverage. That dynamic remains most visible at the GSIBs, but we're beginning to see

elements of it emerge across the broader sector as well.

GSIBs: Capital Markets Still Driving the Bus

We all expected a strong Capital Markets quarter, but the magnitude clearly surprised consensus. Four themes stood out.

1. AI is increasingly the dominant macro driver

What struck me most is how AI has evolved beyond a productivity story into a financing and investment story. Goldman

highlighted large-cap M&A volumes up 90% in 1H26 and described AI infrastructure as driving financing demand through "every

financing instrument in every region," while Morgan Stanley offered perhaps the most aggressive framing, estimating data-center

CapEx of ~$850bn in 2026, rising to ~$1.3tn in 2027 and ~$1.5tn in 2028. Their view remains that we're only 10-15% of the way

through a potential ~$10tn AI compute buildout. Meanwhile, Bank of America now has 300 approved AI use cases and over 400k