The giant bank wirehouses this week continued to see strong results as the broad stock market in 2025 hits new highs, with Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Wealth Managements reporting fourth quarter results that saw assets and client move to the firms and advisors.
Wealth management firms of all stripes are enjoying the record run for the stock markets, with the S&P 500 posting a gain of 17.9% last year, the third consecutive year of double digit gains. And for some, that means benefitting from new clients and assets, as well as a boost in loans to wealthy clients.
Morgan Stanley on Thursday reported that $100 billion in assets in 2025 moved to the control of financial advisors. Bank of America Wealth Management, which includes Merrill Lynch, reported on Wednesday, 21,300 net new relationships in 2025, the eighth year in a row of hitting the 20,000 new relationship figure.
“Our intense focus on the value of advice, which generates movement through the funnel allows us to capture opportunities for adviser-led assets,” said Ted Pick, Morgan Stanley’s CEO, yesterday on a conference call with investors and analysts. “In 2025, we saw accelerating flows across channels with $100 billion migrating to financial advisors.”
“We are using our scale to invest in broadening capabilities for [financial advisors] that are difficult for others to replicate, alternatives and privates, tax-efficient investing, digitized assets, family office and tailored lending,” along with third party money managers, Pick said.
Meanwhile, Bank of America’s rich wealth management clients are turning to the bank for loans, the company reported.
“While commercial loan growth has been driven by our global markets group, we've also seen year-over-year growth of 3% in global banking and strong custom lending growth of $18 billion year-over-year in wealth management as affluent clients borrowed for investments in assets like hospitality, sports, yachts, arts and business,” said Alastair Borthwick, chief financial officer, Wednesday, during a conference call to review earnings.
Meanwhile, the giant banks that are home to some of the highest earning financial advisors in the industry are reportedly whittling down their work forces as new technologies replace some workers.
According to a report this week from Bloomberg news, the six largest Wall Street banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, reduced their aggregate headcount in 2025 by the most since 2016.
The reduction in jobs at banks comes as the financial advice industry reckons with the ultimate impact of AI – artificial intelligence – and machine learning on the industry and how advisors will work with clients.
The lenders had a combined 1.09 million employees at the end of December, down some 10,600 from a year ago to the lowest level since 2021, Bloomberg reported.
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