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What has to happen in Institutional Securities

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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 $216.19 all other verticals held in this portfolio case
Final-quarter revenue $14.19B 49% of company revenue
Explicit segment contribution $70.87B EBITDA less segment capex, before corporate items

Ted Pick's own published scorecard, taken literally. The 4Q25 Strategic Update names four Firmwide Goals - ROTCE 20%, Wealth Management pre-tax margin 30%, client assets $10 trillion-plus and a 70% efficiency ratio. Three were beaten in the basis quarter (26.6% ROTCE, 30.5% Wealth margin, 65% efficiency) and the fourth was reached ($8,084B of Wealth client assets plus $2,004B of Investment Management AUM). This case treats those four numbers as FLOORS rather than targets - which is precisely what management declined to confirm when it left the 30% Wealth benchmark unchanged after a 30.5% print. It is named after the CEO because the framing is his, not the model's. Result: $216.19 a share, +0.62%, an implied 4.065x tangible book - which is the tape, at 4.0402x. What it does NOT achieve is a defence of that multiple on through-cycle returns: on the company's own published 2021-2025 average ROTCE of 17.6% the same identity justifies 2.473x, $131.50, 38.8% lower.

Institutional Securities

Basis quarter$11.04B
Final quarter$14.19B
Implied CAGR+5%
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: $14.19B (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 $11.12B
2026Q4E $11.22B
2027Q1E $11.33B
2027Q2E $11.44B
2027Q3E $11.57B
2027Q4E $11.71B
2028Q1E $11.85B
2028Q2E $12.00B
2028Q3E $12.16B
2028Q4E $12.32B
2029Q1E $12.48B
2029Q2E $12.66B
2029Q3E $12.83B
2029Q4E $13.01B
2030Q1E $13.20B
2030Q2E $13.39B
2030Q3E $13.58B
2030Q4E $13.78B
2031Q1E $13.98B
2031Q2E $14.19B

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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