Wall Street harvested a bumper crop in Q4.

The last of the big American banks reported Thursday, and the results were favorable. BofA beat where it counted, and in some other places besides, while Morgan Stanley’s traders took advantage of what Sharon Yeshaya described as “a lot of activity” in and around the US election.

At the house of Moynihan, NII of $14.36 billion ($14.5 billion with the FTE adjustment) topped the $14.12 billion ($14.34 billion) consensus, rising 3% YoY in the process.

As the figure shows, it was the first quarter in six during which NII grew versus the comparable year-ago period.

The bank said NII should keep growing. By Q4 of 2025, it’ll be between $15.5 billion and $15.7 billion, the bank said Thursday.

That’s what counts for BofA, which is to say it’s the first thing investors look at when the bank reports. The rest of the numbers were fine too. IB was another bright spot. Revenue there was $1.65 billion, easily ahead of the $1.47 billion consensus and the best quarter in a long time.

As the figure shows, the inflection’s real, and it’s non-interest icing on the NII cake for Moynihan. Note that every category beat. Advisory fees were $556 million against $424 million seen, while debt and equity underwriting revenue of $765 million and $364 million compared favorably with consensus, which was looking for $753 million and $320 million, respectively.

The bank’s traders brought in $4.13 billion during the quarter, and wealth management matched estimates with $6 billion of revenue. Non-interest expense was a little high.

I suppose you could nitpick the overall results as being “less” of a beat versus peers, but that’s BofA for you: Moynihan doesn’t set out to make headlines. He’s a “steady as she goes” kind of guy, and BofA’s growth model is inherently (purposefully) cautious. Loans were $1.10 trillion, a touch above estimates and total deposits of $1.97 trillion were in-line.

Over at Morgan, Ted Pick’s crew stood out in equities, which is what you’d expect from an outfit led by Pick. In fact, equities trading had a record year after revenue rose 51% in Q4 to $3.33 billion, a mile above the $2.63 billion consensus expected.

As the figure shows, that was the largest YoY increase on the Street.

In the above-mentioned remarks to Bloomberg, Yeshaya said “the largest part of the story was the re-risking within the equities business” last quarter. As I put it Wednesday while documenting JPMorgan’s results, “volatility’s a boon if your business is facilitating trades.” Apparently, Morgan’s clients were grabbing for upside exposure.

Morgan’s wealth management business ran up $7.5 billion in revenue for the quarter, and although IB missed, Pick said M&A pipelines are the highest in at least seven years.

To reiterate from Wednesday’s big bank coverage: It still pays to be in the money business.