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  • Blackstone Group Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis

    Blackstone Group Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis
    Oct 22 2026
    More earnings analysis: https://betafinch.com
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    **ALEX:** Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown! I'm Alex, joined as always by Jordan, and today we're diving into Blackstone's third quarter 2026 results — a report that came out against a pretty wild macro backdrop.

    **JORDAN:** Yeah, treasury yields hitting decade highs, geopolitical chaos, and this ongoing debate about whether the AI investment boom is sustainable. Lots to unpack.

    **ALEX:** Before we get into it, quick reminder: This podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

    **JORDAN:** Good call. Okay, let's start with the headline numbers.

    **ALEX:** Blackstone reported GAAP net income of $1.3 billion for the quarter, and distributable earnings of $1.7 billion, or $1.32 per share. They declared a dividend of $1.12 per share. Total assets under management climbed 10% year-over-year to roughly $1.4 trillion.

    **JORDAN:** That $1.4 trillion figure is just staggering when you sit with it. And inflows were a huge story here too — $63 billion in the quarter alone, pushing trailing-12-month inflows past $270 billion, the highest in four years.

    **ALEX:** Right, and fee-related earnings — which is really the engine of this business — grew to $1.6 billion, up 6% year-over-year. Base management fees hit a record $2 billion.

    **JORDAN:** What stood out to me is CFO Michael Chae flagging that net realizations were down 20% quarter-over-quarter — but they'd actually told investors to expect that seasonal dip last quarter. The more important signal is what's coming in Q4.

    **ALEX:** Yeah, let's talk about that. Chae said they expect a "significant step up" in net realizations in Q4 — driven by multiple company sales already under contract, plus BXMA's annual performance-fee crystallization and year-end credit fund crystallizations. He actually said the carry realizations alone expected to close in Q4 could surpass the entire firm's net realizations from Q3.

    **JORDAN:** That's a notable forward signal. And looking further out, management reaffirmed they expect a return to double-digit base management fee growth in 2027, driven by new private equity drawdown funds, insurance and credit growth, and momentum in their multi-asset business, BXMA.

    **ALEX:** Now let's get to the theme dominating this whole call: artificial intelligence. Chairman Steve Schwarzman didn't hold back — he compared the AI buildout to the industrial revolution and the commercialization of electricity, arguing we're in the "earliest stages."

    **JORDAN:** But he was also candid about the market's growing nervousness — rising concern about AI financing needs colliding with higher interest rates and stretched valuations. That tension is really the crux of the whole earnings call.

    **ALEX:** Right, and Blackstone's answer to that concern is: look at how we're positioned. They emphasized their data center portfolio is built on long-term contracts — 15 to 20 years — with what President Jon Gray called counterparties averaging $2.5 trillion market caps. Think hyperscalers like Google, Microsoft, Meta.

    **JORDAN:** They also highlighted some major partnerships — CoreWeave with Google, Adept with Anthropic, and in August, NVIDIA named Blackstone one of a small group of managers to help deploy $500 billion in large-scale GPU financing. That's an enormous mandate.

    **ALEX:** During Q&A, one analyst — Alexander Blostein from Goldman — pushed Gray on whether widening credit spreads for "neo-clouds" and AI infrastructure players were hurting Blackstone's own valuations. Gray's answer was essentially: new, unleased assets can actually command higher yields now because delivery is getting harder, and scarcity of compute keeps intensifying.

    **JORDAN

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    8 min
  • Chubb Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis

    Chubb Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis
    Oct 21 2026
    More earnings analysis: https://betafinch.com
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    **ALEX:** Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown! Today we're diving into Chubb Limited's third quarter 2026 results — and this is a big insurance name with a lot of moving parts, so buckle up.

    **JORDAN:** Lots to unpack here, Alex. Record numbers everywhere you look.

    **ALEX:** Before we get into it, quick disclaimer: This podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

    **JORDAN:** Good to have that on record. So let's get into it — Chubb, ticker CB, reported Q3 2026 earnings on October 21st.

    **ALEX:** Right, and headline numbers: core operating income of $2.98 billion, or $7.66 per share. Now, that EPS figure was actually up about 1% year-over-year, but operating income itself was down 2% — and that's purely because last year's quarter had unusually light catastrophe losses. Easy comp issue, not a fundamental problem.

    **JORDAN:** And honestly, the nine-month picture tells the real story. Core operating income of $8.6 billion, up 21% from last year. Core operating EPS of $21.94, up nearly 25%. That's a serious growth trajectory when you zoom out from the noisy quarterly comparisons.

    **ALEX:** Underwriting was the real star here. P&C underwriting income came in at nearly $2.1 billion for the quarter, giving them a combined ratio of 84.1%. And get this — their ex-catastrophe combined ratio was 81.8%, basically flat year-over-year. For context, anything under 100 means they're making money on underwriting alone, before investment income even enters the picture. 81.8% is genuinely elite.

    **JORDAN:** It's wild how consistent that discipline is. CEO Evan Greenberg has talked for years about being "slow to recognize favorable development, quick to recognize unfavorable" — basically, conservative reserving — and you see that show up in the numbers. Nine-month underwriting income hit a record $5.8 billion, up 34%.

    **ALEX:** Now let's talk the investment side, because rates have been a huge tailwind here. Adjusted net investment income was a record $1.89 billion, up 6.3%. Their new money rate — meaning what they earn reinvesting maturing bonds — is now averaging 6.2%, compared to a portfolio yield of 5.2%. So every dollar that rolls over is earning more than before.

    **JORDAN:** There was an interesting wrinkle too — rising rates created a $4.5 billion mark-to-market loss on their bond portfolio this quarter. But management was pretty clear that's an accounting artifact, not a real economic loss. Since they're buy-and-hold investors with a high-quality portfolio, that mark essentially "amortizes away" as bonds approach maturity.

    **ALEX:** They also had a nice one-time win — their stake in USI Insurance Services, held through a partnership with KKR, is being sold to Aon. That's expected to produce a realized gain of $460 million on an original $740 million investment.

    **JORDAN:** Not bad. Now, growth was a more nuanced story. Total P&C premiums were up just 1.9% — which sounds modest — but that masks some very different stories across the business. Overseas General, their international division, grew 6.7%. Personal lines in North America grew 5.3%. Agriculture was up over 5%.

    **ALEX:** But North America Commercial actually declined 2.7%, and that's the piece analysts kept poking at during Q&A. Greenberg explained it's deliberate — they're walking away from property and financial lines business where pricing isn't adequate, and buying more reinsurance to lay off risk in those areas. He said that alone cost them about 4.5 points of growth.

    **JORDAN:** And he was pretty direct that he expects North America Commercial growth to "improve materially in future quarters" — though when analysts pushed for specif

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    8 min
  • Charles Schwab Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis

    Charles Schwab Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis
    Oct 15 2026
    More earnings analysis: https://betafinch.com
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    ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. I'm Alex.

    JORDAN: And I'm Jordan. Alex, we've got a meaty one today — Charles Schwab's Q3 2026 results.

    ALEX: We do, and before we dive in — quick disclosure. This podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

    JORDAN: Good, got that out of the way. Because honestly, Alex, this Schwab print had a lot going on — record numbers, AI partnerships, crypto, even prediction markets.

    ALEX: Prediction markets! We'll absolutely get there. But let's start with the headline numbers because they were genuinely strong. Total net revenue hit $7.2 billion, up 17% year-over-year — a record. Adjusted EPS came in at $1.69, up 29% from last year.

    JORDAN: Twenty-nine percent EPS growth is not a typo. That's the kind of number that makes you sit up. And the pre-tax margin expanded to 54.8%, up about 350 basis points year-over-year. So they're not just growing revenue — they're getting more efficient while doing it.

    ALEX: Right, and that efficiency story is actually a theme we should flag early, because CFO Mike Verdeschi mentioned they're now expecting roughly 800 basis points of positive operating leverage for the full year — which he said is about double what they expected at the start of 2026.

    JORDAN: That's a huge beat on their own internal expectations. Let's talk about where the growth is actually coming from, though, because it's not just market appreciation lifting all boats.

    ALEX: No, this is organic. Core net new assets — that's money clients are actually moving into Schwab, not just market gains — came in at $190 billion for the quarter. That's up 38% over last year.

    JORDAN: And clients opened 1.2 million new brokerage accounts in the quarter alone. CEO Rick Wurster made a point of saying growth is broad-based — retail, RIA advisors, workplace plans — all three channels firing at once.

    ALEX: The lending side really stood out to me too. Bank lending reached $72.3 billion, up 35% year-over-year, driven mostly by their Pledged Asset Line product. And here's the interesting wrinkle — loan growth actually outpaced deposit growth this quarter.

    JORDAN: Which matters because it means Schwab had to lean more on diversified wholesale funding sources to support all that lending demand. It's not a red flag, but it is a shift in balance sheet composition worth watching. Verdeschi framed it as a good problem to have — clients are more engaged, borrowing more, which is actually more profitable for Schwab than just sitting on low-yield securities.

    ALEX: Right, he made that point explicitly — they've got about $190 billion of older securities still yielding under 2%, and as that rolls off, redeploying into lending or even just current-rate securities is going to be a tailwind for net interest margin heading into 2027.

    JORDAN: Speaking of NIM, they guided to NIM growing toward the lower end of their previously provided range for the year, and expense growth coming in at the low end too. So revenue slightly softer than best-case, but expenses also well-controlled. Net-net, still a strong setup.

    ALEX: Now let's get into the stuff that got analysts buzzing on the call — AI. Schwab is leaning hard into this. They've partnered with Anthropic, becoming the first RIA custodian included in Claude for Financial Advisors. And they launched their own AI assistant called Charlie.

    JORDAN: Charlie's interesting because right now it's mostly informational — answering questions, handling simple admin tasks like updating an address. But Wurster was clear: over time, Charlie becomes basically the "front door" to Schwab.

    ALEX: And internally, they said AI has already made their developers

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    7 min
  • Wells Fargo Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis

    Wells Fargo Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis
    Oct 15 2026
    More earnings analysis: https://betafinch.com
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    WELCOME TO BETA FINCH, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. Today we're digging into Wells Fargo's third quarter 2026 results, and there's a lot to unpack.

    ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. I'm Alex, joined as always by Jordan. Before we dive in — this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Okay, Jordan, Wells Fargo posted its Q3 2026 numbers, and honestly, the headline is pretty strong.

    JORDAN: Yeah, EPS came in at $1.87, up 13% year-over-year. And the number that really jumps out to me is ROTCE — return on tangible common equity — hitting 16.3% for the quarter. That's a bank steadily climbing toward its 17-18% target.

    ALEX: Right, and this wasn't one segment carrying the whole load. Revenue grew 2% overall, but Wealth and Investment Management was up 12%, Commercial Banking up 6%, Consumer Banking up 5%, and the Corporate and Investment Bank up 3%.

    JORDAN: That broad-based growth is the story here. Average loans and deposits both up 11% year-over-year. And they're doing it while actually cutting headcount — down 8% year-over-year, the sixth straight year of declines. Efficiency ratio improved to 63%.

    ALEX: CEO Charlie Scharf made a point of saying expenses declined even as revenue-related costs — think commissions — rose 15%. They offset that with a 4% drop in non-revenue expenses.

    JORDAN: That's the efficiency story playing out in real time. Now, let's talk strategy, because there were a couple of genuinely interesting announcements buried in here. Tokenized deposits on their own blockchain platform.

    ALEX: Right, this launched last month. CFO Mike Santomassimo explained the real use case — cross-border payments. Instead of taking a day or two, transactions are settling in two minutes or less, in production right now, albeit small volume.

    JORDAN: And they're not stopping there — Wells is joining 20 other international banks to launch a stablecoin venture starting in the first half of 2027. Scharf was careful to say the U.S. stablecoin use case is "unclear" still, but they want to be positioned.

    ALEX: They're also leaning hard into AI — not just customer-facing tools like an AI assistant for financial advisers, but internally for coding, cybersecurity, risk management. Scharf made an interesting point about scale during the Q&A.

    JORDAN: Yeah, that was one of my favorite moments. He basically said everyone talks about AI agents disrupting banking, but he thinks there's an underappreciated advantage for big banks with scale — you build one tool and deploy it across a massive customer base or operations footprint. Cost stays the same, benefit multiplies.

    ALEX: He also pushed back hard on the idea that AI agents will cause "deposit flight" — people letting bots shop their deposits around for better rates.

    JORDAN: Right, an analyst asked about that directly, and Scharf basically said: that capability already exists, people can move money online today if they want to, and most don't — because checking accounts, payroll, and relationship banking matter more than chasing the last basis point. He called the deposit-flight fear "completely overdone."

    ALEX: Let's talk credit quality, because that's always the thing investors worry about in a higher-rate environment.

    JORDAN: Credit actually looked clean. Net charge-off ratio was 38 basis points, down year-over-year. Consumer charge-offs declined to 70 basis points. Commercial losses ticked up slightly to 18 basis points but management called it idiosyncratic, not systemic — no broad deterioration.

    ALEX: They did flag commercial real estate as a watch item — higher rates mechanically pressure valuations — but Santomassimo said it's

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    7 min
  • Morgan Stanley Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis

    Morgan Stanley Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis
    Oct 15 2026
    More earnings analysis: https://betafinch.com
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    WELCOME TO BETA FINCH

    ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. I'm Alex, joined as always by Jordan, and today we're digging into Morgan Stanley's third quarter 2026 results, reported this week.

    JORDAN: Lots to get into here, Alex — record wealth assets, a scorching equities business, and some pretty candid commentary from CEO Ted Pick on the AI buildout.

    ALEX: Before we jump in, quick disclaimer: this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

    JORDAN: Noted and agreed. Okay, let's talk numbers.

    ALEX: Morgan Stanley posted firm-wide revenue of $20.3 billion for Q3, with earnings per share of $3.03 — and I believe that figure got mangled in the transcript as "$30.03," so just to be clear for listeners, it's $3.03 a share.

    JORDAN: Right, and the headline stat that really jumps out is return on tangible equity at 22.6%. That's the fifth straight quarter above 20%, which management leaned on hard as proof this isn't a one-off hot streak — it's a sustained operating model.

    ALEX: Let's start with wealth management, because the numbers there are genuinely eye-popping. Total client assets across wealth and investment management hit a record $10.5 trillion, up $400 billion in just one quarter. Wealth management revenue alone was over $9 billion — also a record — with net new assets of $232 billion and fee-based flows of $80 billion.

    JORDAN: That $232 billion net-new-assets number is the one analysts kept circling back to in the Q&A. CFO Sharon Yeshaya explained it's not just a one-quarter IPO pop — it's a "tail" effect. Early investors, employees, and funds from prior IPOs keep funneling assets into Morgan Stanley's advisory relationships over time, sometimes months or years after the actual IPO happened.

    ALEX: And Ted Pick made a point of zooming out on that — since acquiring E*TRADE six years ago, they've pulled in over $2 trillion in net new assets, with the last two three-year stretches each adding roughly $1 trillion. His argument is basically "scale begets scale" — the self-directed channel, the workplace/corporate stock plan business, and financial advisors all feed each other.

    JORDAN: It's a nice flywheel story. Now let's talk about the institutional side, because Equities had an absolute monster quarter — $5.8 billion in revenue, up 41% year-over-year. Institutional Securities overall was $10 billion, up 18%.

    ALEX: Investment banking was more modest — up just 2% to $2.2 billion — with advisory revenue of $887 million doing the heavy lifting, while equity underwriting actually declined. Fixed income underwriting stayed strong at $747 million.

    JORDAN: What struck me in the prepared remarks was Pick's framing of the quarter as having "two distinct phases." July and August were red-hot, driven by hyperscaler AI spending. Then after Labor Day, things cooled — Middle East tensions flared back up, rates moved higher, and trading volumes slowed into September.

    ALEX: That "glass half full, glass half empty" framework he used was probably the most quotable moment of the call. On the bullish side: AI capital deployment driving 5-6% nominal GDP growth, strong corporate earnings, full employment. On the bearish side: ongoing geopolitical conflict, higher benchmark rates, elevated equity valuations four years into a bull market, and election uncertainty.

    JORDAN: And he was asked directly — is Morgan Stanley leaning more or less into AI given those risks? His answer was blunt: they were already "overweight," and now they're "double overweight." He framed it as existential — Morgan Stanley wants to be the trusted advisor sitting in the middle of the entire AI financing ecosystem, whether that's h

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    7 min
  • JPMorgan Chase Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis

    JPMorgan Chase Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis
    Oct 15 2026
    More earnings analysis: https://betafinch.com
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    **WELCOME TO BETA FINCH — JPMORGAN CHASE (JPM) Q3 2026**

    ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. I'm Alex, joined as always by Jordan, and today we're digging into JPMorgan Chase's third-quarter 2026 results. Before we get into it, a quick note — this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

    JORDAN: Alright, and there's a lot to dig into here, Alex. JPMorgan is just... firing on all cylinders right now.

    ALEX: It really is. Let's start with the headline numbers. Net income came in at $15.3 billion, EPS of $5.57, and return on tangible common equity of 20%. Revenue was $50.9 billion, up 8% year over year — and up 9% if you strip out some one-time investment securities losses in the corporate segment.

    JORDAN: And the growth was broad-based. Card volumes were up, investment banking fees jumped 14% year over year — notably in advisory — and asset and wealth management saw $51 billion in long-term net inflows. AUM crossed $5.2 trillion, up 13%. This isn't a one-business story.

    ALEX: Right, and CFO Jeremy Barnum actually said something pretty striking on the call — that basically every single business segment is performing above historical norms simultaneously. Jamie Dimon echoed that too, saying "every single business is performing exceptionally well."

    JORDAN: Which, historically, is unusual. Normally you'd see some segments outperform while others lag depending on the rate environment. Barnum pointed out that's just not the pattern right now — everything's humming at once. Expenses did rise 12% year over year to $27.3 billion, mostly from volume-related costs and hiring, but that's the cost of doing more business, not a red flag.

    ALEX: Let's talk guidance, because this is where it gets interesting. For Q4, they're guiding to NII ex-markets of about $25.5 billion and total NII around $28 billion. But the big one — they gave a preliminary 2027 central case for NII ex-markets of approximately $107 billion.

    JORDAN: And Barnum walked through the math on that. If you annualize the Q4 guide, you get to roughly $102 billion, so they're bridging about $5 billion of growth. About a quarter of that comes from rate hikes already priced into the forward curve — they're expecting one more hike in December and two more in the first half of next year. The rest is just continued balance sheet growth — deposits and card loans.

    ALEX: But both Dimon and Barnum were careful to flag this is highly uncertain. Dimon specifically said there's "more uncertainty around that number than normal" given everything going on globally.

    JORDAN: Now here's a strategic shift worth flagging — capital allocation. Buybacks dropped way down this quarter, from a normal cadence of around $7 billion to just $1 billion. That got a lot of investor questions.

    ALEX: Right, and Dimon's answer was pretty clear: they estimate they're sitting on roughly $30 billion of excess capital, but they're choosing to redeploy it into organic growth rather than buybacks — specifically citing the "security resiliency initiative," a $1.5 trillion, 10-year commitment where they've already deployed over $200 billion in year one alone.

    JORDAN: Barnum backed that up with context — JPMorgan's CET1 ratio has climbed from the high single digits years ago to 13.9% now, even while doing a lot of buybacks historically. The message is basically: when you can deploy capital internally at strong returns, that beats buying back stock at today's valuation.

    ALEX: There was also a great exchange on AI. Analyst Mike Mayo pushed hard on quantifying AI's financial benefit, and Barnum was refreshingly candid — he said he's moving away from putting a specific dollar fi

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    7 min
  • Goldman Sachs Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis

    Goldman Sachs Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis
    Oct 15 2026
    More earnings analysis: https://betafinch.com
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    ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown! Today we're digging into Goldman Sachs' third quarter 2026 results, and Jordan, this is a juicy one.

    JORDAN: It really is. But before we get into it — this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

    ALEX: Right, so let's set the scene. Goldman posted net revenues of $18.7 billion for Q3 — the second highest in company history — with EPS of $17.01. ROE came in at 18.7%, ROTE at 20.5%.

    JORDAN: And here's the twist — those numbers actually understate how strong the quarter was. Goldman made an accelerated charitable contribution of about $450 million, pulling forward roughly five years of planned philanthropic giving. Strip that out, and EPS would've been closer to $18, with ROE near 20% and ROTE around 21.5%.

    ALEX: Interesting move — basically front-loading generosity during a strong quarter. Let's talk segments. Global Banking & Markets was the engine here, $13.5 billion in revenue, second-highest ever.

    JORDAN: Advisory revenue hit a record, $1.7 billion, up 18% year-over-year. Goldman's still the king of M&A — they advised on $1.5 trillion in announced deals year-to-date, with a lead over their closest competitor of about $430 billion. That's the biggest lead they've ever had.

    ALEX: Big names in there too — the Hugging Face sale to NVIDIA for $13 billion, Integer Holdings' $6 billion sale to KKR.

    JORDAN: Equities was the real standout though — $6.4 billion in revenue, up 72% year-over-year. Financing revenue within equities rose 96% to a record, driven by elevated prime balances and a lot of activity in Asia.

    ALEX: That Asia buildout keeps coming up. Management's been investing there deliberately for years, and it's clearly paying off now.

    JORDAN: FICC was more muted — basically flat year-over-year — but financing revenue there rose too. And here's the headline stat for anyone tracking Goldman's long-term strategy: financing now makes up over 40% of combined FICC and Equities revenue year-to-date. That's a durability story, not just a trading story.

    ALEX: Which ties into something David Solomon kept hammering — durable revenues have more than doubled since the 2020 Investor Day and now represent about 45% of total revenue year-to-date. That's a structural shift in how Goldman makes money.

    JORDAN: Let's not skip Asset & Wealth Management, because the growth there was staggering. Management and other fees hit a record $3.6 billion, up 22% year-over-year. Assets under supervision reached $4.1 trillion — a record — with $97 billion in long-term inflows. That's 35 consecutive quarters of net inflows.

    ALEX: Thirty-five quarters. That's not luck, that's a flywheel.

    JORDAN: Wealth Management alone pulled in $47 billion in long-term inflows, way ahead of their 5% annual growth target — they're annualizing at 12%. And on the alternatives side, they raised their full-year fundraising target to roughly $150 billion, up from the original $75 to $100 billion range.

    ALEX: They're also buying their way into new capabilities — the NEOS acquisition for derivative income ETFs, and LCN Capital Partners for triple net lease real estate. Solomon was clear this isn't opportunistic; it's a six-plus year strategy to scale the asset management platform.

    JORDAN: Now, the Q&A had some great moments. One analyst asked David Solomon directly about succession rumors that had been circulating in the press.

    ALEX: And Solomon shut that down pretty firmly, saying there's "no succession transition or timeline underway" and that he and the board are singularly focused on growing the firm.

    JORDAN: There was also a really candid exchange about AI infrastructure financing. Sol

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    7 min
  • Citigroup Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis

    Citigroup Q3 2026 Earnings Analysis
    Oct 15 2026
    More earnings analysis: https://betafinch.com
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    WELCOME TO BETA FINCH, YOUR AI-POWERED EARNINGS BREAKDOWN

    ALEX: Welcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown. Today we're diving into Citigroup's third quarter 2026 results, and there's a lot to unpack. But before we get into it, this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

    JORDAN: Alright, Alex, let's get into it because Citi had a genuinely strong quarter. Best third-quarter revenue in a decade. That's not a small claim.

    ALEX: It's not. Net income came in at $5.2 billion, EPS of $2.85, and return on tangible common equity — ROTCE — at 11.5%. Revenue was up 8% year-over-year to $23.8 billion, and they grew in four out of five business segments.

    JORDAN: And the standout was services, up 15%. That's the transaction banking and custody business — deposits, commercial card spend, trade loans, cross-border activity, all of it moving in the right direction. Assets under custody grew 16%.

    ALEX: CEO Jane Fraser called it broad-based growth, and the numbers back that up. ROTCE for services alone was over 31% this quarter. That's an incredibly profitable business.

    JORDAN: Wealth management was another bright spot — revenue up 15%, ROTCE over 14%, and they brought in $38 billion in net new investment assets, more than double what they pulled in a year ago.

    ALEX: Markets revenue was up 6%, with equities particularly strong — up 14%, largely on the back of their prime services build-out. Prime balances grew over 40%. CFO Gonzalo Luchetti talked about them scaling that business after admittedly being late to invest in equities.

    JORDAN: Banking was up 6% too, with ECM — equity capital markets — up 77%. They played a role in six of the quarter's largest transactions, including the SK Hynix deal and an $11 billion high-yield bond offering, the largest of its kind ever.

    ALEX: The one soft spot was U.S. consumer cards — revenue flat, mostly because of higher payments to co-brand partners and rewards costs as they lean into growth. But the underlying business, general-purpose card loans and spend, is still growing nicely, and that segment put up a 21.8% ROTCE.

    JORDAN: Let's talk expenses, because this is where it gets interesting. They pulled forward about $500 million in planned investments and severance into this quarter — roughly $200 million of that was severance alone. And they still delivered positive operating leverage, holding expense growth to just 3% excluding last year's Banamex impairment.

    ALEX: Right, and that's part of a bigger story — they're funding growth investments through what they call "structural efficiency," cutting stranded and transformation costs, a lot of it powered by AI and automation. Fraser mentioned around 100 of their most manual processes are being re-engineered end-to-end.

    JORDAN: The AI angle came up a lot in the Q&A. Mike Mayo from Wells Fargo basically asked: is Citi an AI victim or beneficiary? Meaning, could AI-powered cash management tools cause deposits to flee the bank?

    ALEX: Fraser's answer was essentially "not worried." She pointed to Citi's network effects in services — custody, clearing, tokenized deposits in seven markets — as a moat that's hard to replicate. And internally, she said AI is already paying for itself: faster product launches, 14,000 engineers using an in-house coding tool called Devon, and a 30% cut in tech vendor spend year-over-year.

    JORDAN: On capital, they returned over $4 billion to shareholders this quarter, including $3 billion in buybacks. Their CET1 ratio — that's a core measure of capital strength — sits at 12.8%, about 120 basis points above the current regulatory minimum.

    ALEX: There was a long back-and-forth with analysts about whe

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