• 2025 has so far been a letdown for investment bankers who expected to see a surge in deal activity
• Junior banker hours remain long, even despite fewer deals, managing director Eric Stetler told BI
• He shared how their roles change in a lull, and gave tips on what they can do to make the most of it

You might think that a market downturn and an all-but-frozen dealmaking environment would mean that the young employees of Wall Street known for working gruelingly long hours might get a reprieve.

Think again.

Fewer deals does not mean fewer hours, said Eric Stetler, the head of M&A at the boutique advisory firm D.A. Davidson.

"It's generally about the same," he said about the length of their days at the desk. "Your activities just shift."

The White House's slew of unpredictable trade policies have put investment banking clients in "wait-and-see mode," as bank execs put it in company earnings calls this week. Indeed, investment banking fees for the first quarter of the year were down by 18% at Goldman Sachs from the previous quarter, for example.

When live deals are flowing, young analysts and associates are known to sometimes clock in 100-hour work weeks. That's because they're the direct support staff to senior bankers, whose jobs are to serve and please corporate clients immediately, and at almost any cost. They help their bosses in pitching, due diligence, and deal execution and are often tasked with the more tedious parts of the job like summarizing industry research, formatting financial models, and editing presentation materials.

When deals aren't flowing, junior bankers don't suddenly start going home for dinner. They become master marketers.

"For a junior banker that environment's a little more frustrating I think," Stetler told BI. "For someone that's been in it a while, you understand the ups and downs."

His approach to leading and motivating young employees at his firm has had to adapt with the shifting market.

"Working on business development and marketing skills as someone in their mid-twenties is not a bad thing," he said, "even though it may not be exactly what you want to do at that time."

In an interview with Business Insider, Stetler shared how bankers' roles shift during a slowdown, what juniors should do to make the most of it, and how he motivates his own employees to stay driven.

Making lemonade

Though hours don't change much for junior bankers, activities and tasks do. Analysts and associates go from working on deals to focusing most of their time on involvement in business development and marketing.

"A lot of the administrative stuff that falls behind when the deal markets are crazy, you end up catching up on," Stetler said.

With little control over the fact that deals are lulled, how exactly can junior bankers make the most of a slow period?

"Having a bit of downtime may give them the chance to work with senior bankers on the items that are important, but get deprioritized when the market is hot," he said, like industry content, newsletters, and updating transaction databases.

These skills might sound drab to a person who signed up to advise companies and CEOs on multi-million dollar investments. But Stetler said these skills can actually help advance young people's careers later on.

"Slower periods present openings for junior bankers to think beyond models, data rooms," he said. "They may be able to learn more about a specific industry through research and content creation or help identify opportunities for senior banker tracking."

One idea Stetler said juniors can do to impress their bosses: "Outline an idea for a new piece of industry content, get the theme approved by the senior banker, and contribute to the research and drafting of the piece."

They might also "help review a space adjacent to current sector coverage" to identify opportunities for the team to track going forward.

Overall, it's important to remain driven and optimistic to make an impression with senior bankers.

"Showing interest in marketing and business development topics as a junior banker as well as keeping a positive attitude really helps," he said.

Leading through a downturn

Stetler knows a thing or two about beginning a career in a tough market. He graduated from college in 2008, and shortly after started as an analyst at Baird, where he worked for nearly 13 years before joining D.A. Davidson.

"Back then, it was demoralizing. You get into the office, you knew deals weren't happening, and you still had to be there," he said of the global financial crisis.

To be sure, he said he doesn't think we're currently in a comparable situation.

"I still think where we are with this is, it isn't permanent. There are things being worked through, but there hasn't been a slowdown in work."

To that end, he says he knows it can be challenging for young people to see the forest through the trees. Many junior bankers haven't seen market slowdowns, and COVID was unique.

"Most junior bankers got into investment banking for the deal experience, and the activities that take place during a slower period don't necessarily show the same way on a resume. Junior bankers also put in a tremendous amount of work to support transactions — when transactions are delayed or paused, this can impact morale in a potentially negative way."

But ups and downs are a natural part of a career in finance. Stetler said he and his team are "educating our own people about how this happens, how it works, what comp might look like. There are a lot of things involved with managing."

The way you respond and handle work during a period like this may even help you get promoted — or not.

"The junior banker experience is about developing various skills, and while deal execution is a big part of it, we want to see they can be a well-rounded associate or even a VP down the line. At D.A. Davidson, we want to promote from within and have a bias for it," he said.

• Goldman Sachs reported earnings for the first quarter of 2025 on Monday.
• Goldman generated record trading revenue, but market volatility hurt its corporate dealmaking arm.
• CEO David Solomon addressed anxious feelings from clients, and explained how he's counseling them.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon is advising clients to closely monitor how policy shifts from Washington impact the global business landscape, adding that he's hopeful for a resurgence in M&A volumes later this year.

"When you get outside of the US and I listen to CEOs, I hear a greater sense of short-term concern, but everyone would like less uncertainty and more clarity," Solomon told analysts and shareholders in a Monday morning conference call to break down the firm's first-quarter performance. "My guess is, over time, this level of uncertainty will come down, and my general message to people is to go slow and take a pause here until we have more clarity around a lot of these issues."

Solomon was referring to the recent political uncertainty and a global markets frenzy spawned by White House policy decisions to impose, and then back off from, aggressive tariff measures on foreign trading partners. The resulting markets volatility left Wall Street facing down a conundrum in the first quarter: Traders rode the wave to record revenues, while the momentum that bankers hoped would enable corporate dealmaking to flourish again was all but eviscerated.

Still, Goldman reported robust earnings for the first quarter of 2025, surpassing analyst expectations. The firm said it had generated net revenue of $15.06 billion during the first quarter, up about 8.6% from $13.9 billion in the previous quarter, which concluded at the end of 2024; and also up about 6% from the same quarter one year ago.

"Ongoing policy uncertainty and market volatility drove many clients to reposition their portfolios," lifting trading volumes in the firm's global banking and markets business line, Solomon said on the conference call, according to a transcript by the investment research platform AlphaSense. "In investment banking, the volatile backdrop led to more muted activity relative to the levels we had expected coming into this year."

Washington whiplash helps traders, hurts bankers

Solomon added later that some clients overseas had grown jittery as they watched the whiplash play out from Washington.

Since the start of the year, Wall Street has been strapped in for a bumpy ride as it has tried to make sense of the convulsive policy changes from Washington. Global indexes were thrashed last week as a result of President Donald Trump's policy announcements tied to tariffs and renegotiations with international trading partners.

"What we're hearing from clients — particularly it applies in Europe and other places around the world — is they don't like the level of uncertainty, and they don't like the fact that certain constructs for how they interact with the US economic system and the global economic system are potentially changing," he continued. "It's early to call heads or tails or direction of travel on how this will play out."

Traders have reaped the rewards of the selloff, which rattled economists, provoked fears of a bear market, and inflamed recessionary anxieties. Take Goldman's global banking and markets business line, where traders reported net revenue of $10.71 billion in the first quarter, 10% higher than the previous quarter and up 26% versus the same period last year. Record net revenue in equities — trading revenue was $4.19 billion, up 27% from the first quarter last year — was the big driver of success in this business line.

Investment banking faces 'a risk'

Overall investment banking fees were $1.91 billion, down 8% from the first quarter of 2024, citing softer performance in advisory. In recent weeks, bankers have turned to trying to drum up new business in a challenging environment, and keeping clients abreast of the seemingly hour-by-hour developments.

Investment banking advisory revenue dropped 22% from the same period last year, amounting to $792 billion this quarter. That's also down 18% from the nearly $1 billion Goldman generated in the prior quarter. The bank successfully defended its leading position on the M&A league tables.

Solomon offered a few reasons to be hopeful about the precarious investment banking landscape, saying that the pipeline of deals the bank was juggling was growing.

"As we stand today, our client dialogues remain elevated, and our backlog is up for the fourth consecutive quarter," the CEO said. "That being said, our ability to executive on these transactions will of course be dependent on market conditions."

In fact, he's vowing to win an all-important slice of the M&A pie — if it ever materializes.

"There's no question there's been a pickup in activity and monetization" from financial sponsors who hold billions in liquidity, but have been trepidatious about pulling the trigger on leveraged buyouts amid uncomfortably high interest rates. Solomon said "there's no firm better positioned to capitalize on that than Goldman Sachs" when the dam finally breaks under "enormous pressure" from investors to see returns on their capital commitments to various funds.

"For a period of time, there'll be some uncertainty around how certain things that were close proceed forward," he later told another bank analyst on the call. "But I would expect a significant amount of M&A activity through the rest of the year. But obviously, if the landscape got more constrained, there's a risk of it slowing."

Reed Alexander is a Wall Street correspondent at Business Insider. He can be reached via email at [email protected], or SMSthe encrypted app Signal at (561) 247-5758.

• China criticized CK Hutchinson's sale of its Panama port stake, sending shares falling 6.7%.
• The deal is seen as US power politics, sparking national interest concerns in China.
• Analysts view the sale as strategic, reducing geopolitical risks for CK Hutchinson.

China has taken aim at another company it's not happy with, sending its share price sliding.

On Thursday, China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office reposted a commentary from state-owned Ta Kung Pao — a Hong Kong media outlet — that criticized Hong Kong's CK Hutchinson for its decision to sell a major stake in two Panama ports to a consortium led by New York-based BlackRock.

CK Hutchison's shares fell as much as 6.7% on Friday morning — the most since September 2022 — and were 6.2% lower at 2:58  p.m. local time. Its market value is about $23 billion.

The $22.8 billion deal was announced last week after US President Donald Trump hit out at Chinese influence at the Panama Canal and threatened to regain control over the key shipping waterway.

The news came after another multinational company was caught in the ongoing US-China dispute.

On Thursday, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said it had communicated with Walmart over reports that the retail giant had asked suppliers to cut wholesale prices to offset higher US tariffs. A social media account linked to state TV first reported the news and warned that Walmart would face repercussions if the company insisted on squeezing suppliers.

Companies cautioned to 'think carefully'

Ta Kung Pao said the Panama deal demonstrates that the US is using "state power" to encroach on the legitimate rights and interests of other countries and that it's "power politics packaged as 'business behavior.'"

It also criticized CK Hutchinson for being "spineless" and "profit-seeking." The deal disregards national interests and "betrays and sells out all Chinese people," according to the commentary.

It advised companies to "think carefully about what position and side they should stand on."

The company did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.

Founded by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing — once Asia's richest man, CK Hutchinson said last week its decision was "purely commercial in nature and wholly unrelated to recent political news reports concerning the Panama Ports."

The development demonstrates how private companies and their business dealings are increasingly getting caught in the crosshairs of intensified US-China geopolitical tensions.

Ta Kung Pao said in its commentary that the US would use the port deal for "political purposes and promote its own political agenda."

"China's shipping and trade here will inevitably be subject to the US," it added.

Despite investor concerns over the deal following Tung Ka Pao's commentary, analysts see the deal as positive for CK Hutchinson.

"It's an astute deal selling to a buyer, ostensibly backed by the Trump administration, at the top of the market, knowing global trade could fall under a new tariff regime," wrote David Blennerhassett, an analyst at Quiddity Advisors who publishes on the Smartkarma platform, on Thursday.

He added that he doesn't expect the company to reverse its decision to sell the ports following the commentary.

Analysts at CreditSights wrote last week that not only is CK Hutchinson selling its assets at an attractive price, it's also removing geopolitical risks associated with its Panama ports.