Investment Banking and Securities Intermediation (U.S.) — NAICS 523150

1. Overview

This industry is the connective tissue of American capital markets. Its firms do three related things: they help companies and governments raise money by issuing stocks and bonds (underwriting), they advise on mergers and acquisitions (M&A, one company buying or combining with another), and they stand between buyers and sellers of securities as brokers (agents) and dealers (principals). When a company goes public, when two firms combine, or when an investor buys a share through an app, a business in North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 523150 usually earned a fee or a spread somewhere in the chain. [1]

This is best understood as economic infrastructure, not simply a "stock market" sector. It serves public and private companies, financial sponsors, institutions, and governments — anyone who needs to raise capital, execute a transaction, restructure debt, or trade. It is also high-margin and deeply cyclical: in good years the profits are enormous; in deal droughts they collapse. Our federal statistics count about 25,798 establishments, 358,820 employees, and roughly $306.7 billion of receipts, with average pay near $284,000 per worker — among the highest of any U.S. industry, which tells you how much of the value here flows to people rather than to capital. [2][3]

Ways in (both audiences). Public investors can own pure-play firms directly — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers, the independent broker-dealers, and the advisory boutiques — or a sector exchange-traded fund (ETF, a basket bought like a stock). Private investors can own stakes in partner-owned advisory firms, privately held electronic market makers, and private-equity-backed wealth and broker-dealer platforms that never issue public shares. Both routes are covered in Sections 4 and 10. The core question is not simply whether markets rise — it is which firms capture fees, spreads, and financing income while controlling compensation, technology, and regulatory costs.

2. What it is and how it is structured

NAICS 523150 covers establishments primarily engaged in underwriting, originating, and maintaining markets for securities, or acting as brokers or dealers between buyers and sellers on a commission, transaction-fee, or spread basis. [1] In the 2022 revision of the classification system, two older codes — 523110 (Investment Banking and Securities Dealing) and 523120 (Securities Brokerage) — were collapsed into this single national industry; it also includes securities dealing on a spread basis and stock-option dealing. (Commodity-contract dealing did not fold in here; it became the separate code 523160.) [1]

Two roles matter. A firm acts as a principal when it buys or sells on its own account and takes market risk (a dealer, or an underwriter in a firm-commitment deal). It acts as an agent when it simply matches a customer's order for a fee (a broker). Most large firms do both. Underwriting can mean guaranteeing the purchase of an issue for resale (firm commitment) or marketing it on a best-efforts basis. [1]

The industry runs several business models at once:

• Full-service platforms: advisory, underwriting, sales and trading, financing, brokerage, and prime services.
• Independent advisory firms ("boutiques"): M&A, restructuring, fairness opinions, and capital-structure advice — little balance sheet, mostly fees.
• Brokerages: customer execution, clearing, margin lending, securities lending, and cash management.
• Market makers: continuous two-sided prices, inventory management, and electronic execution.
• Private partnerships: employee- or partner-owned investment banks and trading firms.

What it excludes (adjacent NAICS codes)

• Depository banks that take deposits and lend — NAICS 5221. This is the most important exclusion: the largest U.S. investment-banking franchises (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo) sit inside bank holding companies classified under banking. Their securities subsidiaries perform 523150 activity, but the parent enterprise is counted elsewhere — and even Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley became bank holding companies in 2008. So the federal 523150 totals understate how much "investment banking" the U.S. actually does. [1]
• Commodity Contracts Intermediation (futures and commodity-option dealing/brokering) — NAICS 523160. [1]
• Securities and Commodity Exchanges (Nasdaq, Intercontinental Exchange/NYSE, CME) — NAICS 523210. [1]
• Portfolio Management and Investment Advice (managing money or advising for a fee, e.g., registered investment advisers) — NAICS 523940. [1]
• Trust, Fiduciary, and Custody Activities — NAICS 523991; and Miscellaneous Intermediation (investment clubs, own-account investors) — NAICS 523910. [1]

Exchange operators, asset managers, custodians, and banks can be important counterparties or parents without being direct 523150 businesses. Ownership is mixed: public bank holding companies, listed independent firms, private partnerships (many elite advisory firms), employee-owned dealers, and privately held electronic market makers. The 2022 Economic Census counted 7,815 employer firms operating those 25,798 establishments (mostly branch offices). [3]

3. How big it is

Federal ground-truth figures for NAICS 523150:

A "barbell" structure. The concentration data tell two stories at once. The largest firms control most revenue — the top 20 take 71.3% (CR20) and the top 50 take 84.9% (CR50) — yet the top four take only 28.3% (CR4), and the HHI (a standard concentration gauge where under 1,500 is "unconcentrated") is a low 354.8. So the industry has real scale at the top alongside a long tail of thousands of smaller firms competing in niches. [3] (Q1 payroll is broken out separately above because bonus timing makes quarterly comparisons for this industry misleading; receipts are revenue, not profits, and are not the notional value of securities traded.)

Read the undercount carefully. These numbers capture stand-alone securities intermediaries with employees. They do not capture the investment-banking and trading revenue booked inside universal banks classified under NAICS 5221 — which is where much of Wall Street's flow actually runs — and County Business Patterns excludes most government activity and nonemployer solo operators. [2][5] As a fuller-industry cross-check, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA, a trade body) put national securities-industry employment near 1,135,500 in 2024, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA, the broker-dealer regulator) reported 3,249 registered broker-dealers with gross revenue of roughly $641 billion and pre-tax net income of about $75.8 billion (up 41% year over year). [7][8] The gap between the Census receipts figure (~$307 billion, taxable receipts, 2022) and the FINRA gross-revenue figure (~$641 billion, all member broker-dealers, 2024) reflects different scope and different definitions — FINRA's figure sweeps in interest and trading gains the Census receipts measure treats differently. Treat the federal table as the clean, comparable baseline and the SIFMA/FINRA numbers as the fuller-industry context. [7][8]

4. The investable universe

Unusually for this series, the industry has a deep, liquid public roster — but the very largest players are diversified banks reported under banking codes, so the cleaner "pure plays" are below. Figures are 2024 full-year scale unless noted. This is a selected exposure map, not a complete screen.

Public companies

The four biggest U.S. investment banks by fees — JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Wells Fargo (WFC) — are investable only through their bank-parent stocks, where securities activity is one segment among many. [1]

Major privately owned platforms

Much of the highest-margin work sits at firms that never trade publicly:

• Citadel Securities — market making and liquidity provision (separate from the Citadel hedge fund; founder Ken Griffin).
• Jane Street — quantitative market making and electronic trading.
• Susquehanna International Group (SIG) — privately held quantitative trading and market making.
• DRW — private multi-asset trading and liquidity platform.
• Cantor Fitzgerald — private partnership with investment banking, brokerage, and capital-markets businesses.
• William Blair — independent, employee-owned global partnership.
• Guggenheim Securities — investment-banking and capital-markets arm of privately held Guggenheim Partners.
• Centerview Partners — private, independent M&A advisory firm.

Private equity also owns numerous wealth-management and broker-dealer platforms. [27] Private ownership brings compensation flexibility, long-term control, and freedom from quarterly reporting — but far less public disclosure of revenue, capital, inventory, litigation, and ownership economics.

5. How the money works

The 2022 Economic Census product-line data for brokering-and-dealing income give the cleanest picture of where revenue comes from: fees and commissions 50.9%, interest income from trading accounts 10.1%, net trading gains 10.8%, margin interest 7.1%, and other income 21.1%. These are revenue shares, not profit margins. [4] In practice owners make money four ways, and the mix determines how cyclical and rate-sensitive a firm is:

1. Advisory fees. For M&A, a firm earns a success fee scaled to deal size (often a fraction of a percent on large deals, more on small ones), usually paid at closing — so results are lumpy. This is nearly pure profit with no capital required, which is why boutiques throw off cash and command premium valuations. Restructuring advice is the countercyclical cousin: it rises when deals fall and companies go bankrupt. [24]

2. Underwriting fees. Helping issue equity or debt earns a percentage of proceeds — larger for stock (equity) offerings and initial public offerings (IPOs) than for investment-grade bonds — less concessions, hedging, and losses on committed inventory. The global investment-banking fee pool reached an estimated $117.4 billion in 2024, up 14%, with North America over half at $61.7 billion; debt underwriting led at $39.3 billion and M&A fees at $33.4 billion. [15] Goldman Sachs alone earned $7.7 billion in investment-banking fees in 2024. [16]

3. Trading spreads and principal gains. Dealers and market makers profit from the bid-ask spread (the small gap between buy and sell prices) times enormous volume, plus gains on inventory they hold. The edge per trade can be tiny, but volume is vast. This is volatile and consumes balance sheet and capital.

4. Net interest and asset-based income. The quiet giant of the retail brokers: net interest income (NII) — the spread between what a firm earns on client cash and margin loans versus what it pays out — plus asset-based advisory fees on client balances. At Interactive Brokers, NII was $3.1 billion of $5.2 billion in total 2024 net revenue, dwarfing $1.7 billion in commissions; at Charles Schwab, NII and asset-management fees are the engine, not trading. [18][19]

Where commissions went. After Schwab cut U.S. stock-trading commissions to zero in 2019, retail equity trading stopped being a direct fee business. Some brokers instead route customer orders to wholesale market makers who pay for the flow — payment for order flow (PFOF) — the core of Robinhood's model; others (Interactive Brokers' pro tier) charge explicit commissions and take no PFOF. [14][19][20]

The scorecard investors watch: return on equity (ROE); the compensation ratio (pay as a share of net revenue — often 30–40%, the largest cost and the swing factor in a downturn); pre-tax margin; and, because dealers use borrowed money, leverage and the regulatory-capital cushion (Section 7). For advisory firms, watch fee wallet share, backlog (announced-but-unclosed deals), and revenue per senior banker; for wealth-heavy firms, client assets, net new assets, and fee rates. Net interest margin matters mainly for bank-owned parents, not for independent advisers or market makers.

6. What drives demand

Demand rises when clients need capital, liquidity, restructuring, or transaction execution.

• Deal activity. M&A and capital-raising volumes are the top line for banks, and depend on corporate confidence, CEO willingness to act, financing availability, and market levels. North American M&A value rose about 52% year over year to roughly $2.65 trillion in the 2024–2025 rebound. [26]
• Interest rates — cutting both ways. Lower rates make deal financing cheaper and encourage borrowing and IPOs (good for banking) but shrink NII at the retail brokers. Rate moves in 2023 also caused "cash sorting," where clients shifted idle cash to higher-yielding accounts, pressuring Schwab's margins. [18]
• Market levels and volatility. Rising markets lift asset-based fees and retail engagement; volatility lifts trading volume (good for market makers) but can freeze issuance. The best backdrop pairs stable financing markets with enough volatility to create trading opportunities; disorderly markets create losses and delay M&A.
• Corporate financing needs. Equity issuance, corporate bonds, refinancing, and acquisition financing. SIFMA reported U.S. corporate bond issuance of about $2.2 trillion in 2025, up roughly 13% from 2024. [7]
• Retail participation. App-based investing, options, and crypto expanded the customer base and drove Robinhood's ~58% revenue jump in 2024. [20]
• Private-market dry powder. Private equity and venture capital sat on roughly $2.6 trillion of uncommitted capital — a coiled spring for future deal and IPO fees. [26]

7. Regulation

Securities intermediation is one of the most heavily supervised businesses in the economy.

• Primary regulators. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the federal overseer under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; FINRA is the industry-funded self-regulatory organization (SRO) that licenses and examines broker-dealers under SEC oversight. [8][9]
• Capital and customer protection. The net capital rule (SEC Rule 15c3-1) forces broker-dealers to hold a minimum liquid-capital cushion; the customer protection rule (Rule 15c3-3) requires them to segregate customer cash and securities. In 2024 the SEC amended its financial-responsibility rules to require some larger broker-dealers to compute the customer reserve daily rather than weekly. [9][10]
• Investor safety net. The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) protects eligible customer cash and securities if a member brokerage fails, generally up to $500,000 per customer (including up to $250,000 in cash). SIPC covers broker failure, not market losses or poor investment performance. [11]
• Conduct. Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI) requires brokers to put retail customers' interests first when recommending products; "best-execution" rules require routing orders for the best available terms. Anti-money-laundering, sanctions, cybersecurity, recordkeeping, and operational-resilience obligations also apply. [9]
• Market structure (recent). In 2024 the SEC shortened the standard settlement cycle to one business day after the trade (T+1, Rule 15c6-1), effective May 28, 2024. [12] In September 2024 it adopted narrower minimum price increments ("tick sizes") and lower exchange access-fee caps under Regulation National Market System (Reg NMS). [13] A proposed "order competition rule" that would force retail orders into open auctions — a direct threat to PFOF — was proposed but has not been adopted. [14]
• The bank overlay. Because the biggest dealers sit inside bank holding companies, they also face the Federal Reserve, Dodd-Frank stress tests, and the Volcker Rule's limits on proprietary trading — a major reason banks pared back speculation after 2008. [1]

Compliance, capital, and technology requirements apply to private firms too whenever they operate regulated broker-dealers or market makers, and they are important barriers to entry.

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

The industry splits into tiers. Bulge-bracket full-service firms (Goldman, Morgan Stanley, plus the bank-owned franchises) compete on balance sheet, global reach, and product breadth. Elite boutiques (Evercore, Lazard, Moelis, PJT, Houlihan Lokey, Centerview) compete on advice and senior-banker relationships without a big balance sheet, and have steadily taken advisory market share. Middle-market firms (Piper Sandler, Stifel, Raymond James) serve smaller companies. On the retail side, scale custodians (Schwab), independent broker-dealers (LPL), and low-cost or app-based brokers (Interactive Brokers, Robinhood) compete on price, platform, and advisor recruiting. Electronic market makers (Virtu publicly; Citadel Securities, Jane Street, Susquehanna privately) compete on models, software, low latency, and disciplined risk management. [24][27]

The consolidation wave. Schwab's move to zero commissions in October 2019 detonated the retail model and triggered a merger cascade: Schwab agreed to buy TD Ameritrade for about $26 billion (2019), creating a $5-trillion-asset custodian, and Morgan Stanley bought ETrade for about $13 billion* (2020) to add a retail channel. [25] Independent-broker-dealer roll-ups continue — LPL has added tens of thousands of advisors through deals, reaching nearly 29,000. [21] And the count of FINRA-registered broker-dealers keeps shrinking — down about 1.5% to 3,249 in 2024 — as scale, technology, and compliance costs squeeze small firms out. [8]

Barriers to entry are high: regulatory capital, licensing, technology, balance sheet, and — above all in advisory — senior talent and relationships. That is why competition is intense within tiers but new full-service entrants are rare, and why partner-owned boutiques and electronic market makers can stay powerful without ever going public.

9. Risks

• Cyclicality. Revenue swings hard with markets. The 2022–2023 deal drought gutted banking fees before the 2024–2025 rebound; a recession or shock can do it again. [15][26]
• Interest-rate sensitivity. The retail brokers depend on NII, so rate cuts compress a core profit source even as they help the banking side. [18][19]
• Market, liquidity, and counterparty risk. Dealers can lose money on inventory, hedges, and volatility; margin calls, collateral demands, or lost financing can force asset sales; and a client, clearing broker, or trading venue may fail to perform.
• Regulatory change. A ban or auction requirement on PFOF would hit app-brokers' economics; tighter capital rules raise the cost of trading. [13][14]
• Fee compression and competition. Zero commissions already erased one revenue line; advisory and underwriting fees face constant pricing pressure.
• Concentration of costs in people. With comp often 30–40% of revenue, a bad year squeezes profits fast, and a talent war inflates costs — average pay near $284,000 shows how leveraged the model is to headcount. Senior bankers can also carry client relationships and revenue to a competitor. [2]
• Operational, cyber, conduct, and litigation risk. Trading errors, outages, mis-selling, conflicts among adviser/underwriter/broker/dealer roles, and enforcement actions are recurring hazards.
• Reputational and confidence risk. These firms run on trust and short-term funding; a loss of confidence can be self-fulfilling. Private firms disclose less about leverage, inventory, and contingent liabilities.

10. How to invest and the outlook

Public routes — separate the universe by business model, then compare like with like. Fee-led advisory (EVR, LAZ, HLI, MC, PJT); diversified capital-markets platforms (GS, MS, JEF, plus bank parents JPM/BAC); brokerage and distribution (SCHW, IBKR, HOOD, LPLA, RJF, SF); electronic market making (VIRT). [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] You can also buy the four mega-bank parents for indirect exposure, or a sector ETF (for example, an iShares U.S. broker-dealers and securities-exchanges fund) for a diversified basket. Do not treat exchange operators, asset managers, or custodians as interchangeable with 523150 firms — an advisory boutique, a market maker, a retail broker, and a universal bank have very different capital needs, revenue volatility, and accounting, so valuation multiples only make sense within a model. Tickers, prices, dividends, and multiples live in your brokerage app; the allocation point is that these are high-beta, cyclical financials that outperform in booms and underperform in droughts.

Private routes. Much of the best advisory economics is off the public market: elite partnerships (Centerview, Guggenheim's advisory arm), privately held market makers (Citadel Securities, Jane Street, Susquehanna, DRW), and PE-owned wealth and broker-dealer platforms. Exposure typically comes through employment/equity at those firms, private-equity funds, growth capital, secondaries, or pre-IPO stakes in fintech brokers. Diligence should focus on regulatory capital, clearing arrangements, customer-asset segregation, inventory stress tests, compliance history, client concentration, technology resilience, and retention of key professionals. [27]

Outlook. The setup entering the mid-2020s modestly favors the banking side: an M&A and IPO recovery took hold in 2024–2025 (North American deal value up ~52%), roughly $2.6 trillion of private-equity dry powder is waiting, an AI-and-infrastructure investment wave is generating deals, and improving debt issuance plus a lighter regulatory posture add momentum. [15][26] The offsetting judgment: this is a cyclical, rate-sensitive, regulation-exposed industry, so those tailwinds can reverse quickly — the same rate cuts that help underwriting thin the retail brokers' net interest income, and any market shock stops issuance cold. The durable long-run themes are consolidation (scale in retail, boutiques in advisory, a steadily shrinking count of small broker-dealers) and electronification, alongside firms that pair durable client relationships with disciplined capital use and a revenue mix that can survive a weak deal cycle. [8]

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 NAICS Definition — 523150 Investment Banking and Securities Intermediation" (collapses former 523110 and 523120; adjacent codes 523160/523210/523940/523910/523991). https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=523150&year=2022
2. U.S. Census Bureau, "County Business Patterns (CBP), NAICS 523150," 2023 (establishments, employment, annual and Q1 payroll). https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2023/econ/cbp/2023-cbp.html
3. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 Economic Census — receipts, employer firms, and concentration of largest firms (CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI) for 523150." https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN
4. U.S. Census Bureau, "Finance and Insurance: Brokering and Dealing Products Income for the U.S.: 2022" (revenue composition). https://data.census.gov/table/ECNBRANDDEAL2022.EC2252BRANDDEAL
5. U.S. Census Bureau, "County Business Patterns and Nonemployer Statistics — coverage and methodology" (undercount caveat). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/about.html
6. U.S. Small Business Administration, "Table of Size Standards / 13 CFR § 121.201 — NAICS 523150 ($47.0 million)," 2023. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/13/121.201
7. SIFMA, "Capital Markets Fact Book / The Street, the City and the State — securities-industry employment and U.S. corporate bond issuance," 2025–2026. https://www.sifma.org/research/statistics/fact-book/
8. FINRA, "2025 Industry Snapshot — registered broker-dealers, gross revenue, and pre-tax net income." https://www.finra.org/sites/default/files/2025-07/2025-Industry-Snapshot.pdf
9. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Broker-Dealers / Guide to Broker-Dealer Registration" (net capital rule 15c3-1, customer protection rule 15c3-3, Reg BI, best execution). https://www.sec.gov/about/divisions-offices/division-trading-markets/division-trading-markets-compliance-guides/guide-broker-dealer-registration
10. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "SEC Adopts Amendments to Financial Responsibility Rules for Broker-Dealers" (Press Release 2024-211). https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-211
11. Securities Investor Protection Corporation, "What SIPC Protects" ($500,000 per customer, incl. $250,000 cash). https://www.sipc.org/for-investors/what-sipc-protects
12. Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, "One-Day Settlement Cycle (T+1) to Begin May 28, 2024 (SEC Rule 15c6-1)," 2024. https://www.cahill.com/publications/client-alerts/2024-04-29-one-day-settlement-cycle-t-1-to-begin-may-28-2024
13. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "SEC Adopts Rules to Amend Minimum Pricing Increments and Access Fee Caps" (Reg NMS; Press Release 2024-137), 2024. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-137
14. Sidley Austin LLP / SEC, "SEC market-structure proposals — order competition rule and payment for order flow," 2024. https://www.sidley.com/en/insights/newsupdates/2024/10/sec-adopts-rules-modifying-minimum-pricing-increments-access-fee-caps-and-order-transparency
15. Investment Executive (LSEG data), "Wall Street buoyed by rising fee pool in 2024 — global investment-banking fees $117.4B; North America $61.7B," 2025. https://www.investmentexecutive.com/news/research-and-markets/wall-street-buoyed-by-rising-fee-pool-in-2024/
16. Goldman Sachs, "2024 Full Year and Fourth Quarter Earnings Results — net revenues $53.51B; IB fees $7.73B," 2025. https://www.goldmansachs.com/pressroom/press-releases/2025/2025-01-15-q4-results
17. Morgan Stanley, "Form 10-K, Fiscal Year 2024," 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/895421/000089542125000304/ms-20241231.htm
18. Charles Schwab Corporation, "Form 10-K / 2024 Annual Report — total net revenues $19.6B," 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/316709/000031670925000010/schw-20241231.htm
19. Interactive Brokers Group, "Full-Year 2024 Results — net revenue $5.185B; NII $3.148B; commissions $1.697B," 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1381197/000114036125007442/ny20035746x4_ars.pdf
20. Robinhood Markets, "Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results — net revenue $2.95B, +58%," 2025. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/02/12/3025427/0/en/Robinhood-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2024-Results.html
21. LPL Financial Holdings, "Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results — revenue $12.38B; ~29,000 advisors; ~$1.7T assets," 2025. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/01/30/3018437/29579/en/LPL-Financial-Announces-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2024-Results.html
22. Jefferies Financial Group, "Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Financial Results — net revenues $7.03B," 2025. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250108694644/en/Jefferies-Announces-Fourth-Quarter-2024-Financial-Results
23. Financial Planning / AdvisorHub, "Raymond James (~$1.6T client assets, ~8,800 advisors) and Stifel advisor data," 2025. https://www.financial-planning.com/list/stifel-lands-a-1-35-billion-team-from-raymond-james
24. Career Principles / Prospect Rock Partners, "Top boutique and middle-market investment banks — 2024 revenue and pay data (Evercore, PJT, Houlihan Lokey, Lazard, Moelis, Piper Sandler, Virtu)," 2025. https://www.careerprinciples.com/resources/the-top-20-boutique-investment-banks
25. CNBC, "Morgan Stanley to buy E*Trade for $13 billion (2020); Schwab–TD Ameritrade $26 billion (2019)," 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/20/morgan-stanley-reportedly-to-buy-e-trade-for-13-billion.html
26. J.P. Morgan / BCG, "2025 M&A Outlook — North American deal value ~+52% to ~$2.65T; ~$2.6T private-equity dry powder," 2025. https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/banking/mergers-and-acquisitions-2025
27. Company materials, 2026: Citadel Securities, Jane Street, Susquehanna International Group, DRW, Cantor Fitzgerald, William Blair, Guggenheim Partners, Centerview Partners. https://www.citadelsecurities.com/ · https://www.janestreet.com/ · https://www.cantor.com/ · https://www.williamblair.com/ · https://www.guggenheimpartners.com/ · https://www.centerviewpartners.com/