A hypothetical: You’re lost in the woods, on a dark and stormy night, with no gas in your car and not a person in sight. Your phone is dead.

Basically: You have no idea where you’re going. Like, truly. So, when a cherubic anthropomorphic woodland creature comes by asking for directions, you definitely can’t offer any guidance.

And then all of a sudden…umm…tariffs fall from the sky.

We might’ve taken some artistic liberties with that last bit, but you get the idea. CFOs are in the metaphorical woods right now, and it’s no shocker that a growing number of companies are withdrawing forward-looking guidance.

“I certainly understand the instinct,” Jack McCullough, founder of the CFO Leadership Council, told CFO Brew. “There’s too many variables. If some things all go the right way, you might have a great year, but if only two of them do, it’s a different outcome.”

Increasingly, CFOs seem to be assuming that those variables aren’t going to line up in their favor.

Click here for more on companies withdrawing their forecasting.—NP

Super-regional Huntington Bank holds $210 billion in assets under management and has been the nation’s largest SBA lender for seven consecutive years. It’s coming off a strong quarter that saw its net interest income (NII) rise 11% year over year, and in its most recent earnings call, it raised its full-year guidance for NII to 5%–7% growth over 2024.

We spoke with Huntington’s CFO, Zachary Wasserman, to hear what its consumer and business clients are saying about the economy, and to learn what factors drove the bank’s success in an unusually volatile quarter.

“Cautious optimism” among business owners: Huntington’s business-owner clients aren’t overly concerned about the prospect of a recession yet, Wasserman told CFO Brew.

“What we’re hearing is cautious optimism that the environment will sort of resolve here,” he said. He’s “still seeing a growth orientation” among this group of clients, which he describes as “battle-tested enterprises.”

“They’ve gone through Covid, they’ve gone through inflation, they’ve gone through the interest rate rises, and I think they know how to manage their business” in the face of challenges like tariffs, he said.

For more on what this bank CFO is hearing about the economy, click here.—CV

When the market swings, traders rush to make changes to their portfolios—and banks profit.

Some of the nation’s largest banks brought in record-high trading revenue against the backdrop of this quarter’s stock market volatility. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley all broke records for stock trading gains. Together, those three banks earned more than $12b in equities fees.

Year over year, Citi’s equity trading revenues were 23% higher, Goldman’s grew 27%, and Bank of America’s increased 17%. Morgan Stanley’s equity trading revenue was up a whopping 45% YoY, and JPMorgan’s topped that at 48%.

Trading went on at an even more frenzied pace this quarter than it did during the pandemic, according to the Wall Street Journal. Clients are doing more international trading, reducing their exposure to the US while investing more abroad, especially in the EU and South America, the Journal reported.

The trading gains boosted large banks’ quarterly earnings overall. Goldman, Bank of America, JPMorgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley all beat estimates for revenue and earnings per share, in some cases quite handily. Goldman had its third-highest quarterly revenue and saw its profit increase 15% YoY. Morgan Stanley’s revenue rose 17% YoY to a record $17.7b.

Click here to keep reading.—CV

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