Wall Street Banks See Investment-Banking Comeback on Fed Pivot

Wall Street chiefs are finally calling the bottom on the dealmaking drought that has plagued their earnings for the past two years.

Executives at the biggest banks are expecting a pickup in the coming months, tied to the Federal Reserve’s apparent pivot away from two years of interest-rate hikes. As they wrapped up the worst year for investment-banking revenue since 2012, Wall Street’s top brass outlined their expectations for a turnaround — at least at some point.

“I’m pretty optimistic,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer David Solomon said on a conference call discussing earnings Tuesday. “I’m not going ...