The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that RBC's capital markets unit posted earnings of $1.48-billion, an increase of 23 per cent from a year earlier, driven by higher revenue in global markets and corporate and investment banking. The Globe's Stefanie Marotta writes that capital markets head Derek Neldner says he expects elevated trading and merger-and-acquisition activity to continue as clients navigate heightened uncertainty. "In terms of the near-term visibility of our pipelines that we see, we continue to be very encouraged by the level of activity, and so that certainly will carry us through a number of quarters," Mr. Neldner said. "We think a lot of those trends in terms of the environment we're in over the next few years stay intact. They'll ebb and flow a little bit quarter to quarter, but the volatility and the level of uncertainty that we're seeing from a variety of different factors probably persists." Over all, analysts had expected capital markets activity to continue to bolster profits across the sector while loan growth slows.