Fed Cancels Raymond James? Universal Bank Q4 Earnings Setup

“You got to win the midterms, because, if we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be -- I mean, they will find a reason to impeach me. I will get impeached.”

President Donald Trump

January 13, 2026 | Updated | Last week saw a number of remarkable developments from Washington that we discussed in our weekly edition of The Wrap (“The Wrap: Hezbollah in Caracas? AI Flameout? Trump Buys MBS? Really?”), including President Trump’s order that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac start repurchasing their mortgage backed securities to lower LT interest rates.  Our latest conversation with Julia LaRoche is below:

Later on that Saturday after the release of the latest edition of "The Wrap," we spent Twelfth Night at the Lotos Club. This helped to dispel the confusion caused by the latest Trumpian edict regarding an immediate cap on credit card rates at 10% starting January 20th. This announcement caused a minor furor online, but all for naught.

In fact, a U.S. President does not have the unilateral authority to cap credit card interest rates. Implementing such a cap nationwide requires an act of Congress and then only for national banks. State usury laws also impact the cost of credit.  

The weakness in the stocks of credit card issuers may be another buying opportunity ℅ the POTUS. Like last year with tariffs, markets and related media need to appreciate that the level of political noise from Washington is bound to increase to a loud and mournful yowl as the midterm elections approach.

Trump's latest attack on Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is another case in point and just illustrates the growing political desperation within the Trump Administration. A lightly edited, machine and human-generated transcript of a portion of Trump’s comments last week to Republican lawmakers is available on the PBS NewsHour website.

This week let’s pick up where we left off by discussing the news that JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has agreed to take over the $20 billion in loans underpinning the Apple (AAPL) credit card portfolio from rival Goldman Sachs (GS), extricating it from one of the last businesses related to the ill-fated excursion into retail banking. We’ll watch eagerly to see how much the above-peer loss rate at GS falls.  CEO David Solomon said in response to a question in Q3:

"We’ve been clear that credit cards are not a go forward focus for Goldman Sachs. I don’t have anything more to say on the Apple Card program at the moment. You saw us completely, and we now are completely exited from the GM card platform. When there’s something more for me to report on the Apple Card, I guarantee that this broad group that’s on the call will be among the first to know it."

In this edition of The Institutional Risk Analyst, we look at the largest universal banks including Goldman, Morgan Stanley (MS), Raymond James Financial (RJF), Charles Schwab (SCHW), Ameriprise Financial (AMP), and Stifel Financial (SF). We also talk about Jefferies Financial Group (JEF), which is part of our nonbank finance group and is a significant benchmark for investment banking revenue.  

While preparing this note we discovered that Raymond James had somehow disappeared from the Fed's National Information Center website for Q3 2025. At press time, RJF was not included in the list of large banks in Peer Group 1 and there was no form Y-9C or bank holding company performance report. The bank confirmed to The IRA that a Y-9C was filed on September 30, 2025. We opened a ticket with the Board of Governors helpdesk and will update this report when the omission is corrected. (Editor's note: RJF was restored to NIC late on the evening of January 12th).

Source: Google Finance (1/12/2025)

Universal Bank Q4 Earnings Setup

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