Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other major US banks hit a historic high in Q1 stock repurchase expenses Thanks to profit growth and the Trump administration's more lenient regulatory rules, the largest banks in the United States invested a record breaking $33 billion in stock buybacks in the first quarter of 2026, significantly exceeding market expectations. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup have all conducted their largest ever stock buybacks. The repurchase scale of Bank of America and Morgan Stanley has reached its highest level in several years. Chris Kotowski, a senior analyst at Oppenheimer who tracks large bank stocks, said, "The actual repurchase scale of each bank is 30%, 40%, or even 50% higher than our model predicts." In addition, the Trump administration is implementing the largest relaxation of regulatory policies on Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis, allowing banks to allocate more resources to loans and shareholder returns rather than strengthening their capital buffers. (Golden Ten)