Morgan Stanley crushes Q3 with $4.6B profit, biggest earnings beat in five years

Morgan Stanley just delivered a monster ￰0￱ bank posted a $4.61 billion profit and $18.22 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2025, completely smashing Wall Street ￰1￱ profit figure was up 45% from last year, and revenue jumped 18%, both numbers blowing past what analysts were ￰2￱ per share came in at $2.80, compared to $2.10 predicted by LSEG, making this the firm’s biggest earnings beat in nearly five years, according to ￰3￱ jumped almost 5% in premarket trading after the ￰4￱ adds to a 24% year-to-date gain through Tuesday’s ￰5￱ surge came as every part of the business fired at once — from trading floors, to IPO desks, to the firm’s massive wealth ￰6￱ wasn’t one line carrying the ￰7￱ was a full-blown synchronized ￰8￱ drives biggest earnings beat in five years Ted Pick, the newly named Chairman and CEO, said bluntly: “Our Integrated Firm delivered an outstanding quarter with strong performance in each of our businesses globally.” Pick pointed to the bank’s $2.80 EPS, 23.5% return on tangible common equity, and $18.2 billion in revenue as the numbers that ￰9￱ performance came from strong execution across the board, he ￰10￱ trading exploded by 35%, hitting $4.12 billion, which is $720 million more than StreetAccount ￰11￱ firm credited the jump to higher client activity across regions and record-breaking output from its prime brokerage unit, which serves hedge ￰12￱ income trading added another $2.17 billion, which was an 8% increase over last year, nearly matching estimates.

Altogether, trading brought in $6.29 billion, easily beating the $5.5 billion analysts were looking ￰13￱ figure makes this the strongest Q3 ever for Morgan Stanley’s trading operation, right on the heels of its best-ever second ￰14￱ kind of momentum, especially in a market shaped by macro uncertainty, is ￰15￱ investment banking business followed that up with a 44% jump in revenue , reaching $2.11 billion, which was $430 million above ￰16￱ bank saw more mergers, IPOs, and fixed income fundraising activity than at the same time last ￰17￱ that had been on hold through late 2024 finally crossed the finish ￰18￱ business grows to $8.23 billion amid record client assets Morgan Stanley’s massive wealth management arm also posted a strong ￰19￱ hit $8.23 billion, up 13% from last year, and $500 million above ￰20￱ firm brought in $81 billion in net new assets, bringing total assets across wealth and investment management to $8.9 ￰21￱ unit posted a 30% pre-tax margin, reflecting strong fee income and trading activity among high-net-worth clients.

It’s still one of the firm’s steadiest performers, no matter what’s going on in public ￰22￱ said the firm’s strategy of integrating institutional and retail services is working across all ￰23￱ also confirmed that they remain focused on what he called “durable growth,” not just quarter-to-quarter pops, but long-term ￰24￱ company also got a capital requirement cut from the Federal Reserve in September, after asking the central bank to take another look at its internal risk ￰25￱ decision freed up more room for Morgan Stanley to make capital decisions — including possible acquisitions. Ted, however, warned that the threshold for any deal remains extremely high.

“The bar is super high,” he said back in July when asked about inorganic ￰26￱ smartest crypto minds already read our ￰27￱ in? Join them .