Morgan Stanley Posts Strong Profit On Trading Growth (Update 3)

• Morgan Stanley reported a first-quarter profit of 71 cents a share, beating estimates
• Revenue came in at $8.9 billion.
• Analysts expected a profit of 42 cents per share on revenues of $7.31 billion, when excluding when excluding adjustments related to the trading price of the firms debt according to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It was Morgan Stanley(MS) , an expected laggard, which provided the biggest beat among the large U.S. investment banks as Wall Street's first quarter earnings season drew to a close on Thursday.

While competitors showed mixed results and mostly falling revenue, the nation's sixth-largest bank by assets reported surprisingly broad based revenue growth that significantly beat analyst expectations. Morgan Stanley reported earnings per share of 71 cents on much stronger than expected trading results that bolstered overall revenue and countered some fears heading into earnings.

Morgan Stanley's chief executive James Gorman

Morgan Stanley's beat came on expectations that its earnings would fall behind Goldman Sachs (GS) and JPMorgan Chase(JPM) , who reported slightly better than expected results earlier in April, buoyed by a strong quarter-over-quarter recovery in their trading and fixed income related divisions. Those concerns proved to be unfounded as revenue at Morgan Stanley's institutional securities unit grew to $5 billion, on far higher than expected fixed income and equity trading revenue.

"Our results highlight that the firm is far more balanced and diverse today than we have been in some time," said the company's CFO Ruth Porat in an analyst call.