Morgan Stanley Accomplished One Thing That Makes It More Impressive Than Its Wall Street Competitors

There are two market-wide trends currently plaguing the big banks on Wall Street: 1) declining mortgage activity and 2) tumbling fixed-income trading activity.

However, Morgan Stanley bucked that latter trend by reporting a jump in fixed income & commodities trading revenue.

"Fixed Income & Commodities sales and trading net revenues of $1.7 billion increased from $1.5 billion a year ago," said management in its earnings announcement. "Results reflect strong performance in commodities and solid results in credit and securitized products, despite lower volumes across most fixed income businesses."

Just last week, competitor JP Morgan reported a 21% drop in fixed income trading revenue.

Whatever Morgan Stanley is doing, they're doing it well.

The stock is up 4% in pre-market trading.