We're nine months into 2022 and in case it's escaped anyone's attention, things are not going well for people in investment banking. As JPMorgan pointed out this week, the fees it earned on investment banking deals in the third quarter were down 50% year-on-year.
JPMorgan says it won't be cutting jobs (but probably will be cutting pay), but other banks may not be quite so tremulous. When fees have fallen off a cliff, some sort of trimming looks inevitable. And the state of revenues at this stage in the year is a good indication of where the trimming will take place.