In the last week or so every Wall Street bank has reported its earnings, so now  it’s time for the takeaways.

As usual the headlines of the week didn’t tell the whole story.

A quick glance looks like this: JP  Morgan beat estimates with a 33%  jump in profits, Morgan  Stanley‘s profits dipped but the bank still  beat expectations, Goldman  Sachs is taking champagne  showers, Bank  of America is eeking  out some kind of improvement, and Citi  is finally coming into its own after shedding a load of toxic assets.

Now for the news you can read between the lines.

Sales and trading is on life support, especially if you trade fixed income,  currencies or commodities. The traders at Goldman Sachs did better than everyone  else, but as CNBC’s  John Carney pointed out, they were still down 7% for the quarter.

Bank of America’s S&T revenue fell 20% (run by Tom Montag, who still gets  paid more than BofA CEO Brian  Moynihan) and Morgan Stanley got killed, with its revenue falling 42%.

On the other hand, Wealth Management, once one of the most boring sectors on  The Street, is carrying banks. This is especially true at Morgan Stanley (where  the unit is up 48% from this time last year) and Bank of America, where  assets under management grew $67.7  billion year-over-year to $745.3 billion.

Another business where Wall Street is making some cash is in debt  underwriting. Thanks to our current low yield environment, companies that were  unable to issue bonds before can do so now. The demand to buy these bonds is  there from clients searching for yield any way they can get it. Wall Street is here to help.

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-banks-q1-2013-earnings-2013-4