一张表揭示华尔街如今的生财之道

    在《华尔街改革和消费者保护法案》，即《多德弗兰克法案》通过五年之际，华尔街已逃出生天，并再度呈现出欣欣向荣之势，只是其势头已不如从前。

    举例来说：今年上半年，美国各类金融交易产生的投行费用达到了195亿美元。在华尔街历年来投行业务拿到的半年总费用中，这一数字位居第二，仅比2007年创纪录的201亿美元低3%。然而，就费用构成而言，它与10年前并没有太大的变化（详见上表）。

    这一标志性的银行改革法案是在金融危机后得以通过的，但它未能像一些人所期盼的那样改变华尔街的业务构成，上述数字只是其中的例证之一。例如，交易业务仍是各大银行巨头大部分资金的主要来源。近5年前，《财富》杂志曾计算过各个大型银行的交易收入/营收占比。当时算的是2009年（也就是《多德弗兰克法案》通过一年之前）的数字。我对数据进行了更新，想看看《多德弗兰克法案》在这5年间对华尔街带来了多大的影响，至少对于交易业务有什么样的影响。结果是：影响并不大。

    例如，2015年上半年，摩根大通26%的总营收来自于交易活动，这比2009年的20%又上涨了。美国银行目前的交易收入/营收占比也高于法案通过之前的比例，从17%升至18%，虽然上升的幅度并不大。

    说到交易收入/营收占比，高盛一直是华尔街各大公司中的领头羊。在高盛，交易活动看似仅占其业务的一小部分，但它仍是高盛的重头戏。上半年，高盛58%的营收源于交易活动，较2009年的75%有所下降。同样，摩根士丹利最近获得了华尔街“高风险业务规避者”的美名。然而，其上半年36%的营收仍来自于交易活动。摩根士丹利于周一（7月20日）亮出了好于预期的收益业绩，部分归功于其高于预期的交易运营收入。

    这些大银行仍将很大一部分资产注入到交易业务当中。以摩根大通为例，该银行拥有7240亿美元的交易资产，其中包括金额巨大的衍生品业务，相对于2009年7410亿美元的交易资产，该数字仅仅是略有下降。然而，摩根大通的总资产已从2万亿美元增至2.45万亿美元，交易资产/营收占比也因而出现了下滑，目前略高于25%。美国银行上半年的交易资产为2400亿美元，较2009年的2630亿美元也是略有缩水。

    然而，交易收入总体来说还是出现了下滑。2015年上半年，包括花旗和富国银行在内的美国六家最大的银行，斩获了505亿美元的交易营收，较5年前下降了20%。

    此外，这一现象与风险存在多大的关系，我们很难断定。华尔街的这些金融巨头们至少在明面上不得不放弃其所谓的自营交易业务，也就是银行拿自己的钱直接交易，就像对冲基金那样。而如今，银行似乎大多通过帮助客户完成交易来赚钱。但是，帮助客户进行交易也可能会让银行亏钱。例如，今年早些时候，花旗因瑞士法郎的突然升值出现了亏损。在交易额足够大的情况下，即便交易资产的波动性较低，银行也可能会遭受损失。

    就银行改造而言，《多德弗兰克法案》在某些方面发挥了积极的作用。可能其中最有力的一点莫过于提升银行自持资金的要求，目的是为了应对损失的出现。这是件好事，因为银行仍可能会因交易业务而出现大量亏损。（财富中文网）

    译者：冯丰

    校对：詹妮

    Five years after the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (aka. Dodd-Frank) was passed, Wall Street has survived, and it’s thriving again, though not quite as much as it used to.

    One example: investment banking fees collected on U.S. deals in the first half of this year totaled $19.5 billion. That’s the second highest amount of fees that Wall Street firms have ever collected in any six-month period. And it’s only 3% lower than the $20.1 billion in fee investment banks collected in the first half of 2007, which was the most ever. And the breakdown of fees doesn’t look all that different from a decade ago (see chart above).

    That just one sign the landmark banking reform bill that was passed in the wake of the financial crisis has not changed the business of Wall Street as much as some hoped. Trading, for instance, still makes up a large portion of money that is brought in by the big banks. Nearly five years ago, Fortune computed the percentage of revenue each of the big banks got from trading. The numbers were for 2009, the year before Dodd-Frank. I updated the numbers to see how Dodd-Frank had reshaped Wall Street in its first half decade, at least when it came to trading. The answer: Not much.

    JPMorgan Chase JPM -0.23% , for instance, generated 26% of its total revenue from trading activities in the first half of 2015. That‘s up from 20% in 2009. Bank of America also gets more of its revenue from trading than before Dodd-Frank, though not much more, 18% vs. 17%.

    Goldman Sachs & Co. GS -0.42% was always the Wall Street bank that got the most of its revenue from trading. And there, trading activities do appear to a smaller portion of how Goldman makes its money, but it’s still a lot of what the bank does. In the first half of this year, Goldman made 58% of its revenue from trading activities, down from around 75% in 2009. Morgan Stanley MS 0.10% , too, which has recently got a reputation for eschewing Wall Street’s riskier businesses, got 36% of its revenue from its trading desk in the first half of 2015. That bank reported better-than-expected earnings on Monday, in part because revenue from trading operations was higher than expected.

    And the big banks still devote a good portion of their assets to their trading businesses. At JPMorgan, for instance, the bank has $724 billion in trading assets, which includes its large derivatives book. That’s only down slightly from the $741 billion it had in its trading business in 2009. But JPMorgan’s overall assets have grown to $2.45 trillion from $2 trillion. So trading assets have shrunk to just over a quarter of the total. At Bank of America BAC -0.22% , trading assets are also down only slightly, to $240 billion from $263 billion in 2009.

    Overall, though, trading revenue is down. The nation’s six biggest banks, which also includes Citigroup Inc. C 0.42% and Wells Fargo & Co. C 0.42% , generated $50.5 billion in trading revenue in the first half of 2015. That’s down 20% from five years ago.

    Also, it’s not clear what this says about risk. Wall Street’s biggest have had to ditch, at least formally, their so-called proprietary trading operations, which is when the banks are directly trading their own money, like a hedge fund would. Instead, the banks now appear to make most of their money completing client transactions. But banks can still lose money facilitating client trades. Earlier this year, for instance, Citigroup lost money when the Swiss Franc suddenly rose in value. A lot of money can still be lost in trading low-volatility assets if the volumes are big enough.

    Dodd-Frank has reshaped the banks in other meaningful ways. Perhaps the biggest is that all of the banks are required to hold more capital to protect against losses than they used to. And that’s good news. Because their trading operations could still lose them a lot of money.