Wall Street firms gain market share

Wall Street banks have gained market share in investment banking and trading from European lenders that are still grappling with a stagnant economy and pressure from regulators to bolster capital.

Total revenue posted by the securities units of the top US investment banks rose 24 per cent in the second quarter from a year earlier, more than twice the 11 per cent gain logged by Europe's biggest firms, among them Deutsche Bank and Barclays.

US banks benefited as the S&P 500 Index climbed to a record high, fuelling about US$710 billion of takeovers in the region, the most since 2011.

A contracting euro-zone economy curbed dealmaking as the sovereign debt crisis entered its fourth year and fixed-income trading income fell after the European Central Bank did not provide banks with additional injections of unlimited, cheap cash this year.

"The place you want to focus in terms of making money is the Americas," said Jim Amine, Credit Suisse's global head of investment banking. "Europe's fees have been on a trend down, Asia as well, but the Americas are now 58 per cent of all the investment banking fees globally."

Revenue from fixed-income, currencies and commodities (FICC) sales and trading climbed 12 per cent in the quarter at the top five US banks - JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.