Robert Armstrong

The Trump administration has made several moves to loosen banking rules.

That includes rolling back parts of Dodd-Frank, the post-2008 framework that was designed to limit risk-taking.

And the result is it is a really good time to be a bank.

And we can just look back at the year 2025.

The big bank stocks rose 30%.

over the course of the year.

That's nearly double the gain of the market at large, the S&P.

So, Rob, looking ahead to, well, let's, I guess, start with last year, which was the strongest year for banks since the pandemic.

What do you make of what happened last year in the banking industry, and what can it tell us about the year ahead?

So, I mean, if we were to look at what happened in 2025, all of those things that you described,

leads to one of the strongest years we've ever seen for the banking industry.

And by the way, just a side note, this is ironic because when Trump comes in, the whole message is the guys on Wall Street have won for too long and we're going to hand it back to Main Street.

It's not about getting them rich.

And what do you know?

I mean, everyone on Wall Street is getting richer than basically ever before.

I mean, let's look at just the big bank stocks and their performance over the year.

I mean...

I mentioned the banks index, but that includes all of the smaller banks.

Let's look at the big, big banks.

JP Morgan gained 34%.