The risk-taking is gone - 5 top Wall Street dealmakers describe what they're seeing

Global deal volume - of about $1.5 trillion - is below where it stood in the past two years to date, according to Dealogic. That is down from $1.9 trillion in the same period in 2015.

Until Microsoft announced it would be acquiring LinkedIn for $26 billion on Monday, there just hasn't been much to write home about. And the year has also been marked by the unraveling of some megadeals struck in 2015.

Business Insider spoke with a handful of top deal makers on Wall Street about what's on their minds, and what they expect to see throughout the rest of the year.

They all agreed that a volatile market in the first six weeks of the year was a major impediment. Cautious shareholders can have disproportionate effects on the M&A business - they also argued that comparisons to 2015's record volumes are a little unreasonable. Compared to 2014, which was also a robust year for deals, the environment right now looks much better.

Another common complaint was the regulatory environment: Major transactions like Staples-Office Depot, Halliburton-Baker Hughes, and the $160 billion Pfizer-Allergan merger have all been called off due to government concerns in 2016.

While several bankers pointed to power, chemicals, and healthcare as important sectors to watch going forward, they also agreed that the big looming question was what would happen to the energy sector.

And, of course, one of the biggest themes in M&A this year has been China. Chinese companies struck $92.2 billion of deals outside the country in the first quarter, including ChemChina's $48 billion purchase of Syngenta, Tianjin Tianhai's $6.3 billion bid for Ingram Micro, and Qingdao's $5.4 deal for General Electric's appliance business.

We spoke to all five bankers before the Microsoft-LinkedIn merger was announced this week, but that deal appears to fit within their broad message: that things will continue to pick up throughout the year.