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What has to happen in Institutional Securities

Model as of

This page changes Institutional Securities inside the complete MS model. Every other vertical, corporate programme and valuation assumption stays in the selected portfolio case.

MS forward model
Horizon
Consolidated fair value $250.33 all other verticals held in this portfolio case
Final-quarter revenue $14.91B 49% of company revenue
Explicit segment contribution $76.65B EBITDA less segment capex, before corporate items

The cycle has further to run and Morgan Stanley is over-capitalised into it. Investment Banking rose 58% across all three legs at once - advisory $798M, equity underwriting $851M, fixed income underwriting $788M - which is a reopened window rather than one hot product, and Equity net revenues were a record $6,300M. The balance sheet is not the constraint: 306 basis points and $18.0B of CET1 sit above an 11.8% Standardized requirement the Federal Reserve has confirmed holds until 1 October 2027, while the board reauthorised $20B of buybacks from the third quarter and raised the dividend 15% to $1.15. This case holds Institutional Securities near its record margin and lets Wealth Management sit above the 30% goal rather than reverting to it, at a 9.0% cost of equity and an 11.54x exit - a 15x P/E grossed down by tax. What it does NOT reach is a permanent re-rating onto a different business: $250.33 a share, +16.51%, an implied 4.707x tangible book, an all-time-high multiple on a franchise earning first-half-2026 returns.

Institutional Securities

Basis quarter$11.04B
Final quarter$14.91B
Implied CAGR+6%
Final revenue mix49%

Investment Banking, Equity, Fixed Income and a residual Other line that marks corporate loans. $11,040M of net revenues in the basis quarter - 51.7% of the firm before eliminations and 44% above a year earlier, an all-time record on the firm's own reckoning. Pre-tax income doubled to $4,262M, a 38.61% margin against a 27.6% margin a year earlier, so this was operating leverage and not only a revenue rebound. Morgan Stanley publishes revenue sub-lines inside the segment (Advisory $798M, equity underwriting $851M, fixed income underwriting $788M, Equity $6,300M, Fixed Income $2,455M, Other -$152M) but never pre-tax income beneath the segment, so the line is projected as sequential growth on reported segment net revenues and is not split.

Last four quarters
2025 Q3 $8.52B Reported
2025 Q4 $7.93B Reported
2026 Q1 $10.72B Reported
2026 Q2 $11.04B Reported
AdvisoryEquity underwritingFixed income underwritingEquity (trading and financing)Fixed Income (trading and financing)Other (corporate lending marks, hedges)
Sequential growth +0.5%/qtr decaying toward +1.2% 0.5% holds an all-time-record $11,040M rather than extending it; the trailing-eight sequential mean is +6.96%.
Institutional Securities

Latest: $14.91B (2031Q2E)

Period Value
2023Q1 $6.80B
2023Q2 $5.65B
2023Q3 $5.67B
2023Q4 $4.94B
2024Q1 $7.02B
2024Q2 $6.98B
2024Q3 $6.82B
2024Q4 $7.27B
2025Q1 $8.98B
2025Q2 $7.64B
2025Q3 $8.52B
2025Q4 $7.93B
2026Q1 $10.72B
2026Q2 $11.04B
2026Q3E $11.15B
2026Q4E $11.28B
2027Q1E $11.41B
2027Q2E $11.56B
2027Q3E $11.72B
2027Q4E $11.88B
2028Q1E $12.06B
2028Q2E $12.24B
2028Q3E $12.43B
2028Q4E $12.63B
2029Q1E $12.83B
2029Q2E $13.04B
2029Q3E $13.25B
2029Q4E $13.48B
2030Q1E $13.70B
2030Q2E $13.93B
2030Q3E $14.17B
2030Q4E $14.41B
2031Q1E $14.66B
2031Q2E $14.91B

Assumptions & reasoning

  • The 38.61% margin is PRE-TAX INCOME margin - $4,262M on $11,040M of segment net revenues - already net of $6,707M of segment non-interest expenses AND of the segment's own $71M provision for credit losses. It is NOT pre-provision pre-tax income, which would read 39.25%.
  • Segment pre-tax income DOUBLED year on year on a 44% revenue gain, so the margin moved from 27.6% to 38.61%: operating leverage, not only a revenue rebound. The terminal 33.0% sits above the 32.68% 2024-25 blend and below the 35.85% last-six-quarter blend, because 38.61% is the highest of the fourteen disclosed quarters.
  • ASEASONAL, and this is the vertical where the BAC and GS pages disagreed. Ratio to a CENTRED four-quarter moving average over 2023 Q3-2025 Q4 returns [1.1352, 0.9932, 0.9811, 0.8905], signal 0.2447 against a worst window spread of 0.1316 - 1.86:1. That clears the spread gate but sits below the 2.34:1 at which Goldman's Global Banking & Markets was REJECTED and far below the 8.6:1 that earned BAC's Global Markets its factors. No factors are carried.
  • Three things killed the seasonality. The Q2 windows sign-flip (1.0376 in 2024 against 0.9336 in 2025). The Q4 windows spread 13.2 points (0.8253 / 0.9569 / 0.8688). And the two quarters outside the centred window contradict the shape outright: a 1.135 Q1 factor against a 0.993 Q2 factor implies Q2 below Q1, yet 2026 Q2 printed $11,040M against $10,721M in 2026 Q1, up 3.0%.
  • No sub-line split is attempted. Morgan Stanley publishes revenue beneath the segment - Advisory $798M, equity underwriting $851M, fixed income underwriting $788M, Equity $6,300M, Fixed Income $2,455M, Other -$152M - but pre-tax income ONLY at segment level, so Banking cannot be separated from Markets without inventing a margin. Note that Other is NEGATIVE, a $354M year-on-year swing on corporate-loan marks, and it sits inside this segment total.
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