季报显示：大摩向好，高盛转弱

    摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）CEO高文的全面整改策略终于开始见效。

    虽然第三季度华尔街交易员的日子不好过，但摩根士丹利这三个月的利润和营收在财富管理业务增长的推动下均超出了预期。这家银行第三季度实现利润9.06亿美元，一举扭转了上年同期亏损10亿多美元的局面。

    上年同期的数据包括一项与公司债务相关的会计支出，很多华尔街人士都没注意到这一点。但如果剔除此项支出和其他一次性费用，摩根士丹利的利润从5.6亿美元增加了一倍多，至10亿多美元。

    联系到主要竞争对手高盛（Goldman Sachs）最近这个季度的糟糕表现，摩根士丹利这样的业绩表现尤为引人瞩目。上周四，高盛公布，第三季度利润持平，营收较上年同期大降20%。高盛业绩受到其债券、商品和外汇交易部门业务骤减的冲击，自金融危机以来这个部门一直是高盛利润的主要推动力。

    华尔街今夏秋初的那场混乱，摩根士丹利也不能完全置身事外。美联储（Federal Reserve）将缩减债券购买规模的表态造成利率上涨，土耳其里拉等新兴市场货币的汇率急跌。美联储随后收回了此项计划，市场走势立即逆转，再一次让华尔街大感意外。摩根士丹利固定收益和大宗商品业务的营收较上年同期骤减了43%，降幅与高盛相近。

    但季度业绩似乎也证实了高文策略的正确性：推动摩根士丹利撤出波动性较大的华尔街业务，转向为个人投资者提供储蓄投资等咨询业务，这些业务的服务费收入更为持续稳定。例如，最近季度摩根士丹利财富管理业务的营收就较上年增加了2.50亿美元，尽管同期华尔街市场动荡起伏。

    整体而言，摩根士丹利第三季度营收较上年同期增加了26亿美元。相比之下，高盛的营收则减少了16亿美元。

    过去一年半，高文成功地扭转了不利的局面。继债务评级遭下调，牵头承销的Facebook公司 IPO遭遇滑铁卢等一系列令人失望的事件后，高文的CEO职位一度岌岌可危。由于个人投资者需要等一段时间才会返回市场，收购花旗（Citi）的美邦（Smith Barney）经纪业务回报缓慢。

    如今高文的策略正在显现成效，而高盛突然之间变得没有方向。摩根士丹利财富管理业务第三季度的净资产收益率（这是华尔街非常看重的一项指标）为13%。相比之下，高盛的整体净资产回报率为8%，远远低于该公司长期宣称的20%目标。不过，摩根士丹利的整体净资产回报率为6%，仍低于高盛。

    高文调整摩根士丹利风险策略的举措显现效果的另一迹象是：最近这个季度的风险价值全方位下降，这项指标用于衡量交易部门在某一天可能损失多少钱。

    James Gorman's Morgan Stanley makeover is finally showing results.

    Despite a tough three months for Wall Street traders, Morgan Stanley's profits and revenue, driven by growth in its wealth management division, beat expectations for the third quarter. The bank earned $906 million, up from a loss of just over $1 billion a year ago.

    The year-ago quarter included a heavy hit from an accounting charge related to the company's debt that many on Wall Street ignore. Even excluding that charge and other one-time expenses, though, earnings at Morgan Stanley (MS) more than doubled to just over a $1 billion, up from $560 million.

    The results are particularly striking given how badly Morgan's chief rival Goldman Sachs stumbled in the quarter. On Thursday, Goldman (GS) said its earnings were flat and its revenue had tumbled 20% from a year ago. The firm was hit by a huge drop in its bond, commodities, and currency trading unit, which has been the chief driver of profits for Goldman since the financial crisis.

    Morgan Stanley wasn't able to completely sidestep the mayhem on Wall Street in the summer and early fall. Indications that the Federal Reserve would pull back on its bond buying caused interest rates to rise, and the currencies of emerging market nations such as Turkey to tumble. Markets quickly reversed when the Fed backed off that plan, which seemed to catch Wall Street by surprise yet again. Revenue in Morgan's fixed income and commodities unit fell by 43% from a year ago, similar to the drop at Goldman.

    But the quarterly results also seemed to validate Gorman's plan to push Morgan Stanley away from Wall Street's more volatile businesses, and toward advising individual investors on how to invest their savings, which produces more consistent fees. Revenue at Morgan Stanley's wealth management division, for instance, rose $250 million from a year ago despite the quarter's ups and downs on Wall Street.

    Overall, Morgan Stanley's revenue rose $2.6 billion in the third quarter from the same period a year ago. Goldman's, on the other hand, fell $1.6 billion.

    It has been a remarkable turnaround for Gorman in the past year and a half. The CEO seemed to be on the ropes following a string of disappointments for the firm, including a debt downgrade and the Facebook IPO fiasco, on which Morgan was the lead underwriter. The acquisition of Citi's Smith Barney brokerage division was slow to pay off as individual investors took a while to come back to the market.

    Now Gorman's strategy is paying off, and Goldman suddenly seems adrift. Morgan's wealth management unit had a return on equity, a key statistic on Wall Street, of 13% in the quarter. That compares to an overall ROE at Goldman of 8%, well below that firm's long stated goal of 20%. Morgan Stanley's overall ROE is still less than Goldman's at 6%.

    Another sign that Gorman's effort to re-risk Morgan Stanley is working: Value-at-risk, the measurement of how much money the firm's trading operations could potentially lose on a given day, fell in every category in the quarter.