=Morgan Stanley (MS) reported earnings on Wed 19 Apr 2017 (b/o)

Morgan Stanley beats by $0.10, beats on revs :

• Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.00 per share, $0.10 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.90; revenues rose 25.1% year/year to $9.74 bln vs the $9.29 bln Capital IQ Consensus. 
• Compensation expense of $4.5 billion increased from $3.7 billion a year ago driven by higher revenues. Non-compensation expenses of $2.5 billion compared with $2.4 billion a year ago.
• The effective tax rate for the current quarter was 29.0%, which reflected a recurring-type of discrete tax benefit of $112 million associated with new accounting guidance related to employee share-based payments.
• The annualized return on average common equity was 10.7 percent in the current quarter.
• Institutional Securities reported pre-tax income from continuing operations of $1.7 bln compared with pre-tax income of $908 mln a year ago. Net revenues for the current quarter were $5.2 bln compared with $3.7 bln a year ago.
  • Investment Banking revenues of $1.4 bln increased from $990 mln a year ago: Advisory revenues of $496 mln decreased from $591 mln a year ago on lower levels of completed M&A activity. Equity underwriting revenues of $390 mln increased from $160 mln in the prior year quarter on higher global market volumes. Fixed income underwriting revenues of $531 mln increased from $239 mln in the prior year quarter reflecting higher bond and non-investment grade loan fees.
  • Sales and Trading net revenues of $3.5 bln increased from $2.7 bln a year ago: Equity sales and trading net revenues of $2.0 bln decreased from $2.1 bln a year ago reflecting lower results in our financing business driven by higher funding costs, partly offset by strong results in our execution services businesses. Fixed Income sales and trading net revenues of $1.7 bln increased from $873 mln a year ago reflecting strong performance across all products and regions on improved market conditions compared with the prior year period.
• Wealth Management reported pre-tax income from continuing operations of $973 mln compared with $786 mln in the first quarter of last year. The quarter's pre-tax margin was 24%.2 Net revenues for the current quarter were $4.1 bln compared with $3.7 bln a year ago.
• Investment Management reported pre-tax income from continuing operations of $103 mln compared with $44 mln in the first quarter of last year; AUM $421 mln.
• Book value $37.48/share, tangible BV $32.49/share.