The Companys Asset Management business segment offers clients an array of equity, fixed income and alternative investments and merchant banking services. Also in the quarter, net income was $1.8 billion, or $0.85 per share, compared with net income of $1.9 billion, or $0.92 per share, in Q2 ’15.
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Morgan Stanley’s institutional securities business – which includes both bond and equity trading – accounted for 52.2 per cent of overall revenue in the quarter, up from 49 per cent a year earlier.
Fixed income & commodities sales and trading net revenues surged 30% to $1.3 billion from $1 billion a year ago.
The earnings are up from $8.6bn (£5.5bn, €7.9bn) reported at the same time past year – a difference of $1.1bn.
Shares of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) traded down 0.37% during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $40.05.
Morgan Stanley said wage costs rose to $4.4bn in the quarter from $4.2bn a year earlier, as a result of the higher revenues in wealth management.
“We delivered a strong quarter across each of our businesses, through client-focused execution, expense discipline, and prudent risk management”, CEO James Gorman said in a press release.
Last quarter, Morgan Stanley handily beat earnings expectations amid higher revenue from trading bonds and equities. We remain focused on delivering the long-term value of this franchise.
In other Morgan Stanley news, Director Donald T. Nicolaisen sold 4,160 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 26th.
Additionally, Morgan Stanley’s board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share, payable on August 14 to common shareholders on record July 31, 2015. Including that adjustment, Morgan earned 79 cents per share, which was well ahead of the 74 cents that analysts were expecting.
Morgan Stanley has been reluctant to speculate too much on how the ratings upgrade might affect its business, however. The figure is significantly up from analysts’ estimates of $9.10 billion. Gorman has set a target of 22-25 percent for the business this year.
“Any increase in U.S. interest rates should further strengthen the dollar, prompting more fund outflows from commodities, metals and emerging-market assets”, Vattana Vongseenin, the chief executive officer of Phillip Asset Management in Bangkok, told Bloomberg. This is a loss of 144 advisors from the previous quarter and down 545 advisors reported with the firm a year ago.
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“It is a big number”, said Alois Pirker, a research director for Aite Group’s wealth management consulting unit.
