Goldman, Morgan Stanley predict IPO resilience as revenue climbs

Wall Street’s biggest banks kicked off 2026 with strong gains in equity capital markets revenue, even as the war in Iran weighed on IPO activity.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. topped the first-quarter rankings for revenue from leading deals including initial public offerings and share sales, with $535 million and $472 million respectively. All five firms saw double-digit percentage gains versus the same period in 2025, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The jump in underwriting fees came as activity was broadly healthy in the first quarter, amid wild market swings and a spike in volatility driven by the US-Israel war with Iran. Even as the US IPO market slowed, with volume in March the lowest in nearly a year, executives predicted we won’t have to wait long for a rebound.

“There is no question that with the conflict in the Middle East, IPO activity slowed a little bit, particularly in March,” David Solomon, chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, said on the bank’s earnings call. “At the end of the day, equity markets have been extremely resilient and if that resilience continues, I do think you’ll see IPO activity accelerate again.”

Convertible bonds dominated US ECM deals during the quarter, with Oracle Corp.’s $5 billion mandatory offering and Nebius Group NV raising $4.3 billion across two bonds in a single offering.

The company behind last year’s largest IPO, the $7.2 billion debut of Medline Inc., produced the biggest US share sale in the first three months of 2026 as some of the medical firm’s private equity backers sold $3.5 billion worth of stock. A sale of SanDisk Corp. stock by its former parent Western Digital Corp. raised $3.2 billion.

The IPO market was more notable for its setbacks, including LiftOff Mobile Inc. and Clear Street Group Inc., which both postponed their listing plans in February amid growing hostilities in the Middle East.

Still, with SpaceX planning potentially the largest ever IPO this year, and Anthropic PBC and OpenAI Inc. also weighing multibillion-dollar offerings, it’s not hard to envision banks tallying up bumper fees come the end of the year. With a growing cohort of companies preparing to go public, even beyond those three, executives struck an optimistic tone.

Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick sees the pipeline of IPOs and M&A resuming if the market can reclaim the narrative it had going into 2026, and pointed to private equity’s desire to crystallize some of its portfolio.

“I do think that not every company is going to be able to make it as an IPO in this environment,” he said. “There’s going to be some selection. And what we’re seeing is that the largest asset managers, the largest private equity firms, some of whom have very high quality companies, are likely to be the first to move.”

Citigroup Inc. led its peers in terms of equity underwriting revenue growth, with a 64% first-quarter increase versus a year earlier. Chief Financial Officer Gonzalo Luchetti cited growth in follow-ons and convertible bonds as contributing to the increase, he said on the earnings call.

The Cboe Volatility Index is hovering around 17, while one-month implied volatility on the S&P 500 Index has fallen back to the pre-war level. The US share benchmark is on track to close at its first record since January, as traders bid up stocks amid optimism over the ceasefire between the US and Iran.