Name: Big bank stocks come roaring back in 2025
Uploaded: 2025-12-29T18:13:40.626Z
Duration: 3 min 47 s
Description: 2025 was a good year for the big banks. The six titans of U.S. banking are up by an average of more than 45% this year, while the stocks of the top four public alternative asset managers are collectively down.

2025 was a good year for the big banks. The six titans of U.S. banking are up by an average of more than 45% this year, while the stocks of the top four public alternative asset managers are collectively down.

Large banks are experiencing a resurgence in 2025, supported by eased regulations and a surge in lending activity. This shift has allowed banks like JP Morgan to achieve record profits and regain market share in areas such as leveraged loans and acquisition financing, which had previously been dominated by private credit firms.

Despite the banks' renewed strength, private credit and alternative asset managers remain significant players, with assets in the sector reaching $16 trillion. However, these firms are facing more scrutiny and competition from banks, as traditional M&A financing methods, like bridge loans, return to prominence.

Big bank stocks come roaring back in 2025

Let's turn now to the Big Take story. We love the Big Take stories. They come out every day from Bloomberg News, deeply sourced, just great, fascinating stories, really well done. This one goes to Wall Street's balance of power is shifting. Big banks are roaring back as regulation eases, lending surges, and private credit giants lose some of their luster there. Bloomberg's Catherine Chiglinski helps lead our investing coverage. She is a pride of the William & Mary University, but she leads our coverage on all that stuff and investing in banks. She joins us for more. Talk to us about kind of the big banks. Like when I graduated from business school, went to the Chase Manhattan Bank, we did leverage lending, we made a fortune. And to see private credit take some of that business away really surprised me over the last 15 years or so. How's that balance of power these days? Well, it was huge. I mean, it was a huge shift to see all these private credit, private equity firms sort of really taking all this market share away from the banks as the banks, you know, post-financial crisis were sort of limited by regulations. And also we're arguably trying to be a lot, you know, safer overall. But now we're actually seeing it change a little bit. And I'm not trying to say, you know, banks are going hog wild on everything, but like they've been involved in a lot of the leveraged loan deals this year. We've seen them in some of the major acquisition financing. And it's been a good year for the banks. I mean, regulations have pulled back. JP Morgan's on track to have its highest annual profit. So it's actually been a pretty good time now to be a bank. Yeah, the balance has really shifted. It's revenge of the banks is how Mike Mayo, well-known analyst, bank analyst over at Wells Fargo put it. These non-banks though, do they in return perform less well, have less of the pie? How does ultimately it distribute itself? Because also just the sheer scale of non-usual assets or alternative assets has just grown exponentially to like 16 trillion. Grown exponentially. So obviously I still think those firms will be fine overall, but you're really seeing the stock price talk a little bit. So like the bank stock prices are up quite a bit. I mean, Citigroup, we had their price to book ratio climb above 1% for the first time in a very long time. Like I think you're starting to see them sort of get their mojo back a little bit and really find the groove and the businesses that they're, you know, digging deeper into, investment banking, trading, et cetera. But I also think you're seeing, you know, I think you'll still see these private credit firms, you know, work really hard and like, you know, find different deals. But I do think it's more challenging. I mean, we've had that whole, you know, I feel like this year it was the credit cockroach debate. Yeah, exactly. That really rained for a long time. And while some of the banks were involved in some of those cockroaches, like first brands, you know, I think there is this growing sense that like maybe we should be a little more, we should scrutinize a little bit more of these deals. And obviously the alternative asset managers got so big in the private credit space for so long that I think there's a little bit more of a scrutinizing eye on those. Well, I mean, even in the Warner Brothers discovery deal, there's a lot of big banks, bridge loans. I mean, bring back terms we haven't heard in a while, you know, a bridge loan, which will be refinanced with a, you know, a bond deal or something like that. Some of the traditional MNA financing seems to be coming back. But these private credit folks, they're not going away because the money continues to flow into that asset class. Yeah, the money continues to flow. And I think, you know, I think every competitor of a private credit firm really understands that, you know, they're not going away. Like you should be very careful. You are, you know, if you're a bank for these financing deals, you're going up against a lot. I mean, yeah, you look at the Warner Brothers situation. I mean, the amount of firms that were involved in each of those bids, it's kind of crazy to say, you know, it was banks, but it was also private credit firms and alternative asset managers.

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