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Wealth units at wirehouses and larger public banks continued to beat estimates in the second quarter of 2026, with Morgan Stanley touting that stock market IPOs (like SpaceX) are turbocharging net new wealth assets, while Wells Fargo claims the bank has continued to hit near-record advisor recruiting in the past year. In the second quarter, Wells Fargo reported $3.8 billion in total revenue from its wealth and investment management division, up 13% year-over-year and slightly higher than the prior quarter. Net interest income climbed by 17% based on “lower deposit pricing, and higher deposit and loan balances,” while noninterest expenses rose 10% on higher revenue-related advisor compensation.
In the bank’s earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Mike Santomassimo said the company expects it “should be able to run this company with less headcount” than it currently has, and that it will continue looking for ways to cut expenses. “There’s more opportunity to make things more automated … and to make things more efficient in terms of how we serve clients every day, and we think there’s a long way to go,” he said. However, it doesn’t seem like those personnel reductions are coming from advisors, as Santomassimo said the wirehouse had close to a record level of recruiting (in terms of revenue brought into the firm) over the last three quarters, with purportedly record-low attrition. He boasted about Wells’ success despite acknowledging that the wirehouse hadn’t changed its deal to recruit advisors and doesn’t plan to, and therefore potentially misses out on attracting some teams. “The pipeline we’ve got is quite good in terms of what we’ve got over the rest of the year,” he said.