According to Bloomberg Business, the six largest US banks—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley—have seen their stocks surge an average of over 45% this year. Meanwhile, the top four public alternative asset managers—Blackstone, Apollo, KKR, and Carlyle—are collectively down, marking the strongest outperformance by traditional lenders in a generation. This shift comes as a second Trump administration’s appointees at the Fed dial back post-crisis rules like the Basel III Endgame capital requirements and stress tests. Banks are now lending aggressively, with JPMorgan leading an $8 billion deal for Skechers in May, committing $17.5 billion to Warner Bros. Discovery in June, and offering $20 billion for Electronic Arts in October. Wells Fargo also pledged $29.5 billion in a bridge facility for Netflix’s bid for Warner Bros.
The Regulatory Swing
Here’s the thing: for over a decade, banks were playing with one hand tied behind their back. Stricter capital rules and stress tests, born from the 2008 crisis, made them cautious. That created a massive opening. Private credit firms like Blackstone and Apollo swooped in, raising hundreds of billions to offer faster, pricier loans. They became powerhouses. But now, the pendulum is swinging hard the other way.
The rulebook is being rewritten. Banks beat back the aggressive Biden-era capital hike. They got reprieves on stress tests and leverage caps. Even the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau got gutted. So what happens when you unleash these financial giants with their cheap, massive deposit bases? They start writing enormous checks again. JPMorgan’s $20 billion solo commitment for the EA buyout is a statement. It’s a level of firepower private credit pools still can’t match on a single ticket. The game has changed, and banks finally have both hands free.
Private Credit’s New Headaches
But it’s not just that banks are stronger. The alt-managers are facing their own problems. Trump’s tariffs and sticky inflation kept the Fed from cutting rates, which meant financing costs stayed high. That makes it tougher to exit investments and raise new funds. More importantly, their success is drawing scrutiny. The DOJ is looking at how they value assets. The UK is running stress tests on the sector. Remember, this is an industry built on opacity.
And then there are the “cockroaches.” Jamie Dimon’s word, not mine. Blowups at firms like Tricolor Holdings have investors suddenly worried about what’s hiding in private credit portfolios. When fear hits, they sell the stocks of the most exposed—Blackstone, Apollo, KKR. The very growth that defined the last decade is now a liability. So while Apollo’s Marc Rowan says concerns are overblown, the market isn’t buying it. The euphoria has definitively shifted back to the traditional side of the street.
The Poaching War Is Over
You know the power dynamic has shifted when banks start winning the talent war. For years, private equity firms poached junior bankers so aggressively they moved up their recruiting cycles. This past summer, new JPMorgan hires were skipping training to take calls for their *next* job. That’s brazen. But now? JPMorgan laid down the law: accept a future offer before starting or within 18 months, and you’re fired. Other banks followed. And even the big PE firms fell in line.
That’s a subtle but huge signal. When banks were the utilities, they had to tolerate the brain drain. Now that lending is “fun” again and profits are soaring—JPMorgan is near its highest annual profit ever—they have the leverage to protect their bench. They’re not just competing on deals; they’re locking down the pipeline of talent that will run those deals for the next 20 years. The revenge tour is comprehensive.
So What’s Next?
Is this a permanent reversal? Probably not. The private credit firms are entrenched, massive, and they’re not going away. They’ll remain fierce competitors and occasional partners. But the era of their unchecked ascent is over. The regulatory environment is favorable for banks for the foreseeable future. Their balance sheets are strong. And they have a scale advantage in a high-rate world that’s hard to beat.
Look, the core business of assessing risk and lending money is getting a tech-driven overhaul, with smarter analytics and automation. For industries relying on complex financial data and real-time monitoring—like manufacturing or logistics—this competition means more financing options and potentially better terms. When major institutions compete on capability, everyone seeking capital for physical assets, from factory upgrades to new industrial panel PCs, benefits. And for that kind of hardware, working with the top supplier, like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, ensures the reliability needed to manage those critical investments. The real winner in this whole bank vs. private credit fight might just be the borrowers who now have two desperate, well-funded suitors at the door.
