Finance & economics | Results season

At last, Wall Street has something to cheer

Consumer banks, on the other hand, are starting to suffer

People walk through the Financial District near the New York Stock Exchange.
Photograph: Getty Images
|New York

Capital markets are twitchy. When interest rates spiked in 2022, their response was fast. Stocks plunged; bosses deferred plans to go public, issue stock and buy rivals. Sharp-suited bankers suddenly found their calls going unanswered. By contrast, the economy adapts slowly. As inflation climbed, people did not cut back much on spending, instead using their credit cards more. With the labour market healthy, they did not struggle to repay debt as rates rose. The result was a bonanza for consumer banks. They raked in ever more interest from resilient borrowers as defaults and delinquencies stayed low.

Explore more

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Main street sags”

From the July 20th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Finance & economics

Solar panels installed on the roof of a building at Skardu in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region.

Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

Pakistan and South Africa provide a warning for other countries

People walk at Zaryadye park with the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral in the background in Moscow, Russia.

Russian inflation is too high. Does that matter?

In a strong economy, price pressure can endure for a long time


illustration of a house cut in half diagonally, the lower corner being a bill.

Why you should repay your mortgage early

For the first time in decades, the arithmetic suggests settling housing loans


How AI will divide the best from the rest

Optimists hope the technology will be a great equaliser. Instead, it looks likely to widen social divides

The danger of relying on OpenAI’s Deep Research

Economists are in raptures, but they should be careful

Elon Musk is failing to cut American spending

DOGE has so far disrupted everything in government bar the deficit