'I don't know how you couldn't be embarrassed': Wall Street is rethinking its Trump bet
Good morning. Bill Gates says AI is coming for a slew of jobs, including two that once seemed tech-proof: teachers and doctors . What will be left for us humans to do? "Retire early," Gates said.
In today's big story, Wall Street dealmakers thought Trump was the answer. Now, they're not so sure .
What's on deck
Markets: Why I want to work on Wall Street: College students explain .
Tech: OpenAI is on a hiring spree, and one area of investment stands out .
Business: Realtors and Zillow are going to war, but homebuyers will pay the price .
But first, Wall Street is having doubts.
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The big story
They thought Trump was the answer
"I don't know how you couldn't be embarrassed," a managing director at a middle market-focused investment bank told BI.
They were talking about the many soothsayers in Wall Street's C-suites who had bet that the new administration would revive a comatose dealmaking market. Things haven't quite worked out that way .
Goldman Sachs said that the paralyzed deal market dragged revenue from deal work down 22% in the first quarter, compared with the same period last year.
On every bank's Q1 earnings calls in recent days, one person loomed large: President Donald Trump.
No CEOs mentioned him by name. Instead, they talked about uncertainty, worried clients, and a concerning economic outlook, BI's Reed Alexander writes .
"While our corporate and consumer clients are resilient and in good financial health, the world is in a wait-and-see mode and is facing a more negative macro outlook than anyone had anticipated at the beginning of the year," Jane Fraser, the CEO of Citigroup, said.
Behind the scenes, bankers told BI that they were feeling less diplomatic about the Trump administration and its tariff policies: "If you're an executive in finance and you talk to clients frequently and you understand how the world works, there's no way you can't be upset."
A fuller picture of how Trump is impacting Wall Street may not emerge until the next earnings season later this summer. Many of the worst days of recent volatility happened in April — the second quarter.
Whether the White House will care is another matter.
3 things in markets
1. Netflix: Sell-off, who? Netflix's shares have climbed more than 10% in 2025, outperforming its mega-cap tech peers and a struggling broader market. Some analysts consider the stock to be recession-resistant .
