Morgan Stanley has stepped up efforts to regain its traditional dominance in stock trading, a position it ceded to longtime rival Goldman Sachs in the wake of the 2021 implosion of Archegos Capital Management.
Under new chief executive Ted Pick, who previously headed the bank’s equities trading business, Morgan Stanley has narrowed the gap with Goldman to its smallest since 2022.
In the latest quarter, Morgan Stanley’s revenues from equities trading increased by almost 20 per cent from a year ago to $3bn, far in excess of analysts’ expectations. That compared with a 7 per cent increase to $3.2bn at Goldman, and a 21 per cent increase to just shy of $3bn at JPMorgan Chase.