Wall Street's celebrating a boom in equity trading

REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

• JPMorgan and Citigroup both announced first quarter earnings on Friday, with both beating solidly.
• Both had bumper first quarters in equity trading, with JPMorgan posting a record quarter for the business.

Wall Street's celebrating a bumper quarter in equity trading.

JPMorgan and Citigroup both announced first quarter earnings on Friday, with both beating solidly. Both banks also posted gains in market revenues, with JPMorgan's markets revenues up 7% on an underlying basis, and Citigroup's total markets and securities securities revenues up 3%.

Those gains were driven by equities revenues, with JPMorgan posting record equities revenues of $2 billion, and Citigroup posting a 38% gain in equities revenues to $1.1 billion.

"Volatile markets drove client activity in Equity Derivatives and we saw continued strength in Prime Services, while gaining share in Cash Equities," Daniel Pinto, head of JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank, said in a memo to staff.

Citigroup said its results reflected "growth across all products," meanwhile.

The results follow a volatile first quarter for the stock market, which included a sharp spike in volatility, as markets whipsawed back and forth on account of, among other things, fears of the US stoking a trade war.