Morgan Stanley said fourth-quarter profit rose 51% year-over-year, which would be another major U.S. bank that would appear in a better-than-expected state in a turbulent year at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The New York company reported a profit of $ 3.39 billion, or $ 1.81 per share, on revenue of $ 13.64 billion. This beats the consensus estimates of analysts polled by FactSet, which predicted earnings per share of $ 1.30 on revenue of $ 11.58 billion.
Morgan Stanley rounded up fourth-quarter earnings reports from the country’s major banks, which still benefited from a recovery on Wall Street and federal pandemic response measures that prevented the worst-case economic scenario. The competitor Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Tuesday reported a fourth-quarter profit that was more than twice as large as the previous year’s results and an annual revenue of 11 years.
With its focus on affluent Americans and large corporations and money managers, Morgan Stanley is less exposed to mass unemployment and small business than more main banks in Main Street.
Equity and bond trading at Morgan Stanley rose 32% to $ 4.22 billion. Fees for advice on transactions and the offering of shares and bonds increased by 46% to $ 2.30 billion.