With banker bonuses set to drop this year, it should be no surprise that things are not all sunshine and roses on Wall Street. After 30 years of dramatically outperforming Main Street, Wall Street wages may be set for some mean-reversion as JPMorgan analysts take an ax to the biggest global investment banks' earnings. As Bloomberg reports, "quiet trading floors" are set to depress global investment banks’ second-quarter revenue 24 percent, with weakness across equities, interest rates, currencies, with a regionally-driven weakness from Asia.
While equity trading volume declines are well known, FX trading volumes are tumbling...
And bond trading is declining rapidly...
As Bloomberg reports, trading revenue at investment banks on both sides of the Atlantic has been under pressure as volatility in financial markets and fears over global growth resulted in the most subdued start to a year since 2009. Backed by a healthier domestic economy, U.S. investment banks are continuing to take market share from their retreating European competitors, and trading is becoming more concentrated in the largest five firms, Citigroup Inc. said in a note last week.
Deutsche Bank AG is the JPMorgan analysts’ top pick as it could cut costs faster than investors expect. Credit trading revenue will probably outperform that of macro products, benefiting firms such as Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. compared to their commercial bank rivals, according to the note.
Second-quarter advisory and capital markets revenue will plummet 32 percent on last year, the analysts wrote. While equity underwriting fees will rebound from the first quarter, they’ll drop more than 60 percent from a year earlier at the biggest firms, according to the estimates.
Credit Suisse Group AG, in the midst of a major overhaul shedding billions of euros of assets under new Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam, will probably post the biggest drop in second-quarter investment banking and trading revenue at 32 percent, followed by UBS Group AG’s 28 percent decline, according to the report. Barclays Plc revenue in those businesses will probably fall 14 percent, the least of the global banks tracked by JPMorgan’s analysts.
With bonuses being cut...fixed income trading and investment bank underwriting will be hardest hit, estimating that bonuses for those roles will fall as much as 15 percent to 20 percent from last year.
Headcount will be next...
Will this bring bank stocks back to reality?
Time for some mean-reversion to Main Street?
Or will it be a systemic change that drives the drop?