Morgan Stanley Q2 earnings 2015

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)’s stock had its “hold” rating reaffirmed by research analysts at Oppenheimer in a report released on Tuesday, ARN reports.

The firm’s revenue rose to 13 per cent to US$9.74 billion.

“Global based asset inflows were $13.9 billion bringing total fee-based client assets to …”

It is imperative to state that Morgan Stanley was the only bank which reported an increase in bond trading revenues among the biggest US banks and generated a record profit in its wealth management division for the fourth time in five quarters.

The highlight of the 2Q results was the stellar 12 percent increase in quarterly revenue to hit $9.56 billion.

Hasbro (NASDAQ:HAS) advanced 2.2 percent in premarket trade after the toy giant delivered quarterly profit and revenue that topped expectations. Gorman has set a target of 22-25 per cent for the business this year.

The company’s net revenue fell 4% to $797.7mn. The earnings for the prior year second quarter included a net discrete tax benefit of $609 million or $0.31 per diluted share, principally related to the remeasurement of reserves and related interest.8. As one analyst at UBS Securities was quoted as saying in conversation on Bloomberg Television, investors had been concerned, but the results that came out of Morgan Stanley demonstrated their capabilities in that space.

(Merrill Lynch said last week that its 16,419 advisors had production of $1.04 million on average as of June 30.).

The firm’s overall return on equity, a commonly used measure of bank profitability that Mr. Gorman has flagged as an important metric, was 9.1% compared with 10.7% in the second quarter a year earlier, excluding an accounting adjustment.

Net income for the quarter dropped 4.8% or $0.85 a share to $1.81billion.

In 2006, bond trading accounted for more than 28% of revenue while equities trading accounted for about 19%.

This quarter’s earnings are the first since former Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat left to take the same position at Google Inc.

Worldwide Data Corp (IDC) says Apple was the top smartphone vendor in China during the first quarter this year with a 14.7% market share, helped by sales of its bigger screen iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The Company’s operating segments include Institutional Securities, Wealth Management and Investment Management.

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, the largest brokerage firm by number of advisers, has ceded some ground in the past year as its head count slipped to 15,771, the lowest since the unit was united with Smith Barney in 2009.

MS closed Friday’s regular trading session at $40.20, up $0.44 on a volume of 8.10 million shares.

Morgan Stanley executives did not elaborate on the decline in a conference call, despite a question from one analyst, Christian Bolu of Credit Suisse, who asked if Morgan Stanley might be interested in an acquisition, given that “adviser growth remains weakened”.