The winners and losers from Q1: Morgan Stanley mostly up, HSBC and SocGen mostly down
Banking bonuses for 2026 are currently a topic of discussion. It’s all rather wild speculation at the moment, as bonuses are driven by bank more than anything, and there’s only a quarter of results to go by so far. However, there are some banks standing out already for their performances.
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According to market intelligence provider Tricumen, the most impressive bank in Q1 – and by quite a significant margin – was Morgan Stanley.
Tricumen’s analysis of change in operating revenue showed that Morgan Stanley notched an impressive nine out of 20 possible green “up” arrows, which indicate top quartile revenue growth. No other bank got more than six, so both Morgan Stanely’s bankers and traders were standout for the quarter.
Still, it was not a completely clean sweep. Morgan Stanley also had two red “down” arrows, indicating a bottom quartile change to Tricumen, in debt capital markets loans, as well as equity trading – both cash and derivatives.
The biggest declines, from Tricumen’s data, appear to be at HSBC and SocGen. HSBC had 12 red “down arrows” indicating a bottom quartile change in operating revenue, as did SocGen. HSBC did enjoy some green upswing from its commercial banking services, as did SocGen.
It's worth noting that the figures above are for US$, not local currency. The dollar was weaker than in Q1 of 2025 than in Q1 of 2026 - therefore, the change in currencies alone might flatter European bank results, as the same amount of Euro now buys more dollars than last quarter. The same result as last year would be posted as an increase due to the currency change.
Product wise, as expected, the strongest results were for M&A banking and commodities sales & trading professionals. Operating revenue per employee – as shown in the table below – for these two groups increased by 100% and 76% respectively, reaching spectacular heights in terms of productivity.
That lines up pretty neatly with what compensation consultancy Johnson Associates is forecasting for 2026’s bonus increases – namely, that M&A and commodities professionals will do great. But, given a doubling in productivity – is a 20% increase in bonus really justifiable? It’s not up to us, but still.
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