On Monday it was the turn of HSBC and BNP Paribas to report their interim results; as usual one had to dig a little to uncover a hint of FX performance.
In all the 263 pages of the HSBC report, for H1 2010 rather than Q2 2010, there are no figures for FX of course, but there is “Trading activities” which is exclusive of “net interest income on trading activities”. The figure for “Trading activities” includes credit trading amongst other non-FX ‘activities’ so it’s not possible to gauge how much of the reported $3.419 billion is due to FX; or even, if the other products were taken out, how much more than that figure FX contributed.
In the notes we find that “Global Banking and Markets reported its second best performance of any half year period” and that “revenues slowed in the second quarter of 2010 as European sovereign debt concerns and widening credit spreads suppressed client activity and reduced demand for foreign exchange, credit and rates products.” However, “Performance in the foreign exchange business remained strong but suffered from a reduction in market volatility and customer-driven volumes compared with the unprecedented levels experienced in late 2008 and early 2009.”
The report mentions that “a charge of US$350 million was taken in respect of UK and French payroll taxes levied on certain 2009 bonus payments” which compares with $362 million donated by Morgan Stanley and $400 million by Citi.
In the BNP Paribas report FX results were even harder to find; in fact the report itself gave no breakdown, so far as I could see, of performance by product. Ironically, it was in the much smaller press release that a little detail was to be found: “The revenues of the Fixed Income business unit, which came to €1.258 billion, were affected by the considerable contraction of primary markets, the widening credit spreads and the sharp rise in volatility…On the foreign exchange market, the business unit enjoyed good performance on the G10 currencies.” Naturally, the bank wanted the release to speak for itself, but in reports like this there is often information in the blank spaces. What was the performance like in non-G10 FX?
Goldman Sachs
Citi
JPMorgan
Morgan Stanley
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
State Street
Bank of New York/Mellon
UBS
Deutsche
HSBC
BNP Paribas
Barclays Capital
Standard Chartered
