There are two market-wide trends plaguing the big banks on Wall Street: one, declining mortgage activity, and, two, tumbling fixed-income trading activity.
But Morgan Stanley bucked that latter trend by reporting a jump in fixed-income and commodities trading revenue.
"Fixed Income and commodities sales and trading net revenues of $1.7 billion increased from $1.5 billion a year ago," management said in its earnings announcement. "Results reflect strong performance in commodities and solid results in credit and securitized products, despite lower volumes across most fixed income businesses."
Just last week, competitor JP Morgan reported a 21% drop in fixed-income trading revenue.
Whatever Morgan Stanley is doing, it's doing it well.
The stock is up 4% in pre-market trading.
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