von MS verspricht man sich einiges, trotz schwierigen umfelds im fixed income bereich ...
"... Morgan Stanley may begin to see the payoff in having changed its business model. It is relying less on trading and more on fee-generating businesses such as providing financial advice to individuals, which the firm calls global wealth management, as well as asset management. In June, the company paid $2.75 billion to win control of a joint venture with Citigroup Inc.’s Smith Barney that includes more than 18,000 financial advisers, the biggest brokerage force in the U.S.
James Gorman, 51, succeeded Chairman John Mack as CEO at the start of this year, replacing an executive who spent decades in investment banking with a manager whose main experience at securities firms has been leading wealth management at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Morgan Stanley. At Goldman Sachs, Blankfein and President Gary Cohn have backgrounds in commodities and fixed- income trading.
‘More Upside’
“Usually if you can identify a name like a Morgan Stanley that is improving and is integrating some new operations, that could mean more upside” in the stock, said Cole of Ferguson Wellman. “There are just probably more risks associated with that than with Goldman being Goldman.”
That uncertainty is reflected in analysts’ recommendations. Seventeen analysts recommend buying Morgan Stanley compared with 10 who have a neutral stance and two who say investors should sell, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. By contrast, 20 analysts have buy recommendations on Goldman Sachs shares compared with seven who have a hold stance. None are telling investors to sell.
Morgan Stanley’s trading revenue lagged behind Goldman Sachs’s in 2009, in part because the firm was required to take accounting losses related to a decline in its own credit risk. The company also booked commercial real estate losses and integration costs associated with Smith Barney.
Accounting Writedowns
Morgan Stanley’s revenue from its fixed-income business was $6.87 billion for the first nine months of last year, damped by $4.9 billion in writedowns on the firm’s liabilities as credit spreads narrowed. A year earlier, the $21.4 billion in trading revenue was bolstered by $11.8 billion in gains booked on liabilities because the firm’s credit spreads widened.
The accounting writedowns on the Morgan Stanley’s bonds, known as debt-valuation adjustments, aren’t likely to be repeated in 2010, and the firm has been hiring new sales and trading employees to boost results in that area. Most of the real estate writedowns are finished and the Smith Barney joint venture will start to produce earnings gains, analysts say.
“We see stabilization and payoff from investment spending initiatives within the institutional securities franchise and the realization of global wealth management integration,” Howard Chen, an analyst at Credit Suisse in New York, wrote in a note to investors on Jan. 4.
Fixed-Income Trading
In the fourth quarter, both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are likely to show weak fixed-income trading revenue, analysts say. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second-biggest U.S. bank, reported last week that its revenue from that business slid 45 percent from the third quarter, hitting the lowest level of the year. JPMorgan’s $2.7 billion in trading revenue was 26 percent lower than estimated by Jeff Harte, an analyst at Sandler O’Neill & Partners in Chicago.
“This suggests an even more difficult fixed-income trading environment than anticipated and may foreshadow revenue shortfalls for peers,” Harte wrote in a note to investors on Jan. 15.
[Bloomberg] |
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