Morgan Stanley's global head of stock trading is leaving the firm

Morgan Stanley's global head of equity trading, Peter Santoro, is leaving the firm, according to people familiar with the matter.

Santoro was promoted to global head of equity trading in January 2016 after Sam Kellie-Smith took over the fixed-income business. Before that he was in charge of equity trading for the Americas.

Before that he did stints at Citadel and Citigroup, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Equity trading is Morgan Stanley's marquee business.

The division earned $8.04 billion in revenue in 2016, compared with $5.12 billion for fixed income trading. That total was down 3% from 2015.

In the fourth quarter, the division earned $1.95 billion in revenue - compared with $1.5 billion in fixed income trading.

More to come...

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