Morgan Stanley said fourth-quarter earnings increased 51% from a year ago, another major US bank that emerged from a turbulent year in better shape than expected at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The New York-based company reported a profit of $ 3.39 billion, or $ 1.81 per share. Revenue increased 26% to $ 13.64 billion. Both surpassed the consensus estimates of analysts surveyed by FactSet, which predicted earnings per share of $ 1.30 over revenue of $ 11.58 billion.
Morgan Stanley completed the fourth quarter earnings reports for the nation’s major banks, which continued to benefit from a recovery on Wall Street and federal pandemic response measures that avoided the worst economic scenario. On Tuesday, rival Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reported a fourth-quarter profit that was more than twice that of the previous year’s results and the annual revenue that peaked in 11 years.
With its focus on wealthy Americans and large corporations and money managers, Morgan Stanley is less exposed to mass unemployment and the closure of small businesses than most Main Street banks.
Morgan Stanley’s stock and bond trading revenue grew 32% to $ 4.22 billion, a jump higher than any other bank. Investment bank fees increased 46% to $ 2.30 billion, mainly due to the $ 1 billion in revenue that Morgan Stanley generated to underwrite initial public offerings and other equity offers. These rates more than doubled compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.