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"Morgan Stanley and UBS absolutely missed the low-hanging fruit of 2009 but they cannot cede that business to their competitors"
Steve Stelmach, FBR Capital |
Earnings results for the fourth quarter across Wall Street confirmed the continuing decline in fixed-income trading revenues.
JPMorgan, in particular, reported large declines in revenue for the quarter. Its fixed-income trading business brought in just $2.7 billion – in the previous three quarters revenues had been around $5 billion. Goldman Sachs, which led Wall Street in FICC trading over the first three quarters of 2009 also posted a substantial drop, with revenues of $3.97 billion for the final quarter, down from almost $6 billion in the previous quarter and more than $6.5 billion in each of the first two quarters.
A decrease in volumes over the period, rather than narrowing bid-ask spreads, lay behind much of the drop-off. Not wanting to risk the strong...
