JPMorgan reported third-quarter earnings on Tuesday that missed analyst estimates.

On a conference call following the earnings release, Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake made a dark prediction for the fourth quarter.

"If markets remain at these levels, Q4 revenue will also be lower" than guidance, Lake said.

The bank's markets revenues of $4.3 billion were down 6% year-on-year.

Fixed income was down 11% year-on-year.

That reflected lower revenue in commodities and continued weakness in credit, which were partially offset by strength in currencies and emerging markets, according to the bank.

It also reflected higher interest costs on higher long-term debt.

Lake said the "slow quarter in credit" was a result of "challenging market conditions" in the third quarter that kept clients "on the sidelines."

Equity-markets revenues, however, were up $1.4 billion, or 9%, with strong performance in derivatives and cash, driven by higher client volumes.

Analysts at KBW said in a note: "JPM’s CFO highlighted on the earnings conference call that activity thus far in 4Q15 was similar to 3Q15 and analysts estimates for 4Q15 EPS were likely too high as a result.

"The general takeaway was that 4Q15 could be another challenging quarter for credit. We believe this is a negative read-across for the industry broadly."

SEE ALSO: The 4 factors that will shape bank earnings season

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Bank of America reported third-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat expectations.

The bank reported earnings per diluted share of $0.37 on revenue $20.7 billion.

Analysts were expecting earnings per share of $0.33 on revenue of $20.73 billion, according to Bloomberg.

"We saw solid results this quarter by continuing to execute our long-term strategy," CEO Brian Moynihan said.

"The key drivers of our business — deposit taking and lending to both our consumer and corporate clients — moved in the right direction this quarter, and our trading results on behalf of clients remained fairly stable in challenging capital markets conditions."

In the same quarter last year, the bank reported a loss of $0.04 per share, revised down from a loss of $0.01 per share, on revenue of $21.4 billion.

Here's the breakdown for Q3:

• Revenues in investment banking were $4.2 billion. Net income of $1.3 billion was down from $1.5 billion in the same quarter last year. That's because of lower net interest income and lower underwriting fees, according to the bank.
• Trading revenue came in at $4.07 billion. Fixed income, currencies, and commodities sales and trading revenue decreased 11% from the year-ago quarter after the bank saw a drop in credit-related businesses. That was offset partially by better rates products.
• Equities sales and trading revenue, meanwhile, was up 12% because of good derivatives performance. That's a sign of favorable market conditions, according to the bank.
• Wealth and investment management revenue was $4.5 billion, down $198 million from the same quarter a year ago. Higher asset-management fees were offset by lower transactional revenue, according to the bank, "as clients continue to migrate from brokerage to managed relationships."
• Consumer banking revenue was $7.8 billion for the quarter, up 1% from a year ago, while net income was up 5%. The bank originated $13.7 billion in first-lien residential mortgage loans and $3.1 billion in home-equity loans, compared with $11.7 billion and $3.2 billion, respectively, in the year-ago quarter.
• Mobile banking users jumped 14% from the year-ago quarter to 18.4 million.
• The number of 60-plus-days delinquent first-mortgage loans was down 14% from the prior quarter and 48% from the year-ago quarter.
• Legal fees were $231 million. That's down a lot from the same quarter last year, when the bank paid a $5.8 billion fine to the Department of Justice that shaved earnings per share by about $0.43.

In the second quarter, the bank reported earnings that beat on the top and bottom lines.

Bank of America also got a new CFO. Bruce Thompson left that position shortly after second-quarter earnings were released in July, and he has been replaced by Paul Donofrio.

JPMorgan reported third-quarter earnings on Tuesday. Wells Fargo will report next, around 8 a.m. Wednesday.

SEE ALSO: Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan gets to keep his 'chairman' title

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Wells Fargo reported third-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat expectations.

The bank reported diluted earnings per share of $1.05 on revenue of $21.9 billion.

Analysts were expecting earnings per share of $1.04 on revenue of $21.79 billion, according to Bloomberg.

In the same quarter last year, the bank reported earnings of $1.02 per share.

"Compared with a year ago, we grew loans, deposits and capital, and returned more capital to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks," said Chairman and CEO John Stumpf in a press release.

"Our balance sheet and credit results remained strong and our 265,000 team members continue to focus on helping our customers succeed financially."

Net interest income of $11.5 billion was up from the previous quarter partly because of growth in investment securities and lending — including "the full quarter benefit of the GE Capital loan purchase and related financing transaction that settled late in the second quarter," according to the bank.

On Tuesday it was announced that Wells Fargo would buy the last of General Electric's commercial lending business.

Here's a breakdown for Q3:

• Total quarter-end loans of $903.2 billion were up 8% from the same quarter a year ago. Total average deposits of $1.2 trillion were up 6% from the year ago quarter.
• Investment securities were $345.1 billion.
• Community banking reported revenue of $13.6 billion, up 6% from the year-ago quarter.
• Within consumer lending, home lending saw originations of $55 billion, down from the second quarter, and applications of $73 billion, also down from the previous quarter.
• Wholesale banking reported revenue of $5.6 billion, down 2% from Q3 2014.
• Wealth and investment management reported revenues of $3.9 billion, up 2% from the year-ago quarter.
• In the asset-management division, total AUM of $480 billion was down $4 billion from the year-ago quarter.
• The firm returned $3.2 billion to shareholders in Q3 in dividends and stock repurchases amounting to 51.7 million shares of common stock.

In the second quarter, Wells missed on the top line and reported bottom-line results that were right in line with expectations, with diluted earnings per share of $1.04 on revenue of $21.3 billion.

JPMorgan reported Q2 earnings on Tuesday and Bank of America reported earlier on Wednesday. Goldman Sachs will report Q2 earnings on Thursday.

SEE ALSO: These are the 4 factors that will shape bank earnings season

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Goldman Sachs just ​reported earnings that missed on the top and bottom lines.

The bank reported adjusted earnings per share of $2.64 on revenue of $6.86 billion.

Analysts were expecting adjusted earnings per share of $3.00 on revenue of $7.12 billion, according to Bloomberg.

"We experienced lower levels of activity and declining asset prices during the quarter, reflecting renewed concerns about global economic growth," CEO Lloyd Blankfein said in a statement.

"We continue to see strong levels of activity in Investment Banking and growth in Investment Management, and looking ahead, are encouraged by the competitive positioning of our global client franchise."

The stock was down 2% in early trading.

In the same quarter last year, Goldman crushed expectations with earnings of $4.57 per share ($3.21 expected) on revenue of $8.39 billion.

Here's the breakdown for Q3:

• Net income of $1.43 billion was down 36% from the same quarter last year.
• Investment banking revenue came in at $1.56 billion, right in line with expectations, and up 6% year on year. That's a 23% drop from Q2.
• Fixed income, currency, and commodities trading revenue came in at $1.46, or 33% lower than the third quarter of 2014.
• Equities revenues were $1.75 billion, up 9% year on year.
• Investing and lending revenue came in at $670 million, or 60% lower year on year and 63% lower than the previous quarter. 
• In investment management, revenues were $1.42 billion, or 3% lower year on year and 14% lower than Q2.
• Legal fees were $416 million, up from $194 million in the same quarter last year.

The second quarter was a good one for Goldman, but only if you ignored legal costs — the bank reported earnings per share of $1.98 ($3.97 expected), but ex-legal fees it was $4.75. 

In September, Blankfein announced he had a highly curable form of lymphoma. President and COO Gary Cohn has been taking the lead in terms of public appearances and speaking engagements in the meantime.

JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo reported Q3 earnings earlier this week.

Citi will report next, around 8 a.m. Thursday.

SEE ALSO: These are the 4 factors that will shape bank earnings season

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The controversy surrounding Valeant Pharmaceuticals' strategy and its market slide this week are bad news for Wall Street investment banks that stand to lose one of their best clients.

The specialty drug company has emerged as the fifth-largest payer of investment banker fees over the past three years thanks to its rapid acquisition-driven and debt-financed expansion that has made it a darling of investors.

But its business model, which has also relied on aggressive price hikes for acquired drugs, has come under growing scrutiny because of political backlash against high drug prices, dragging Valeant shares down from record highs scaled in August.

The company said earlier this week it would now focus on buying back shares and paying off debt after spending about $40 billion on some 150 acquisitions since 2008 only to see its shares plummet further after a short-selling firm raised questions about its strategy and accounting practices.

The firm's woes mean a likely loss of lucrative business for JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and other major investment banks.

Since 2012, only General Electric Co, Allergan Plc, AT&T Inc and Dell Inc have paid more than Valeant in fees to Wall Street, according to data from Freeman and Co, a consulting firm.

Valeant's investment banking fees totaled $500 million since 2012, according to Freeman. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs have been top beneficiaries, pocketing $97 million and $84 million respectively in the last three years.

Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG and RBC Capital Markets each earned roughly $50 million, according to the data.

The handsome fee payments have come even though Valeant has closed a number of its largest deals without hiring a mergers and acquisitions adviser, including its largest acquisition, the $15.8 billion takeover of Salix Pharmaceuticals in April.

In going alone in some deals, Valeant relied on the deal-making expertise of its top executives. Its Chief Executive Michael Pearson, previously led the pharmaceutical practice at McKinsey & Co., and Chief Financial Officer Howard Schiller, who left the company in June, was a top investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Valeant still paid fees for the financing of the deals.

Valeant's capital raising, mostly in the form of debt, has been by far the most lucrative source of deal-making fees, accounting for nearly $450 million of the total, according to the data.

For Valeant, the legacy of those capital raises is more than $40 billion in debt, which currently exceeds its market capitalization of around $39 billion.

Several other drug companies that have followed similar strategies of aggressive acquisitions, cuts in research and development budgets and price increases, have also come under pressure amid concerns about tougher drug pricing scrutiny.

Several Valeant peers, including Endo International Plc, Mallinckrodt Plc and Horizon Pharma Plc, have also seen their shares fall, potentially limiting their ability to make acquisitions in the future.

(Reporting by Carl O'Donnell; Editing by Greg Roumeliotis and Tomasz Janowski)

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There's no question that building a career in finance has always meant working hard.

For junior bankers, it has traditionally meant long hours, late nights, and doing the grunt work that the senior bankers pass on.

But is being a junior banker worse today than it was 20 or 30 years ago?

One of Wall Street's most senior investment bankers gave us some insight.

'Back in my day ...'

When he was a rookie, the banker said, the wannabe Masters of the Universe were unquestioning in their dedication.

If a boss told them to jump, he said, they would always respond, 'How high?'

But nowadays if the banker — who is in his 50s and runs one of the biggest businesses on Wall Street — asks a young analyst to jump, they might respond with something like:

"Well, I don't know if that's the right move for me. I'm not sure jumping is the right thing to do on this occasion. How is jumping going to help me? I think I would rather skip. I think skipping might be better than jumping. Let me take some time to think about that. I am going to get back to you on that."

He chalked that up to the way millennials have been raised.

Millennials need protecting from themselves

That isn't to say that junior bankers work less hard. In fact, he said it is quite the opposite. They are just more likely to want their opinions heard and to ask whether the thing they are being asked to do is the right thing to do. 

When the banker was young, he and his analysts colleagues were eager and worked hard — but only so long as they were in the office.

Because his bosses could only reach him by speaking face-to-face or on a landline phone, he was pretty much off the hook when he went home for the evening or weekend.

In other words, there was a limit to how much work he could do.

The difference today is that junior bankers have smart phones and laptops, which means they are accessible at all times. 

For the most part they're just as eager as they used to be, but today there are fewer boundaries.

In a sense, junior bankers today need to be protected from themselves — from their own ambition — to avoid burning out, the banker said.

That's partly why banks across the Street have begun implementing rules and guidelines to limit the hours that analysts work. Goldman Sachs, for example, protects Saturdays, while Bank of America analysts are expected to take at least four days off per month.

SEE ALSO: Here are Wall Street's rules for junior bankers

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Morgan Stanley is one of the best-known names on Wall Street.

It's also among the most prestigious places to work if you're hoping to build a career in finance.

To help potential job applicants, Morgan Stanley collected a list of things that make students stand out during campus recruiting, according to its own recruiters.

The traits are as much about personality as they are about smarts.

Here is what they look for in candidates.

SEE ALSO: Want to intern at a Wall Street bank? Here's the first thing they'll look for on your résumé

Show your resourcefulness.

"I like to see that students have reached out to their college or university alumni who now work at Morgan Stanley. It shows they're resourceful, have initiative and are self-starters. You can also ask alumni questions you might feel uncomfortable asking a recruiter."

Stay calm and keep listening.

"There are group exercises that are designed to simulate problem solving under pressure. We look for people who can stay calm as the pressure increases. It's also key to listen to your team members. Leadership qualities are great, but it's also important to show you can listen to others and support their ideas if they make sense."

Know what you want and why you want it.

"When you interview with a certain business division, give a sense that you already know all about Morgan Stanley and what you're looking for. Go in, introduce yourself, say what you think you can offer Morgan Stanley, and tell us why you're interested in that business division."

Aspiring investment bankers, listen up.

You know how competitive Wall Street internships are — so if you land an interview with a bank, you want to come prepared.

To help you out, we spoke with a former analyst at a bulge-bracket bank who has been through the whole process.

He told us the five most common technical questions he encountered in investment-banking internship interviews.

The good news is, each question is answered in-depth in the Mergers and Inquisitions"Breaking into Wall Street" guide.

"Don't waste your time with any other prep services," the former analyst said.

He has no affiliation with Mergers and Inquisitions.

He recommended studying all the basic-level questions from the M&I guide in addition to these five questions. (If you're pressed for time, don't worry about the advanced questions, he said. They're not as essential for internship-level interviews.)

We got the answers from Mergers and Inquisitions. If they make no sense to you and you want to work on Wall Street, you've got some background reading to do.

SEE ALSO: Want to intern at a Wall Street bank? Here's the first thing it will look for on your résumé

1. If a company incurs $10 (pretax) of depreciation expense, how does that affect the three financial statements?

"Depreciation is a non-cash charge on the Income Statement, so an increase of $10 causes Pre-Tax Income to drop by $10 and Net Income to fall by $6, assuming a 40% tax rate.

On the Cash Flow Statement, Net Income is down by $6 but you add back the $10 of Depreciation since it's a non-cash expense, so cash at the bottom is up by $4.

On the Balance Sheet, cash is up by $4 on the Assets side, but PP&E has declined by $10 due to the added Depreciation, so the Assets side is down by $6.

On the L&E side, Retained Earnings is down by $6 because of the reduced Net Income on the Income Statement, so both sides of the Balance Sheet are down by $6 and it remains in balance."

2. Please walk me from Enterprise Value to Equity Value (or the other way around).

"Equity Value represents the value of all the assets a company has, but only to common equity investors (i.e., shareholders) in the company. Enterprise Value represents the value of only the company's core business assets, but to all investors in the company (equity, debt, preferred, etc.).

So to move from Equity Value to Enterprise Value, you subtract non-core assets, and you add items that represent other investor groups.

In practice, this means starting with Equity Value and subtracting cash (technically excess cash, but usually simplified to just cash) and other non-core assets such as short-term/long-term investments, and then adding debt, preferred stock, non-controlling interests, and other items that represent other investor groups in the company.

To move from Enterprise Value to Equity Value, you do the opposite and subtract all those items representing other investor groups and add the non-core assets such as cash, investments, etc."

3. Please walk me from revenue to free cash flow.

"First, clarify what type of Free Cash Flow they want. Unlevered? Levered? Something else?

Assuming it's Unlevered FCF — or what's available to all investors in the company (which pairs with Enterprise Value):

Start with revenue and subtract COGS and Operating Expenses to get to Operating Income, or EBIT. Multiply by (1 - Tax Rate) to get to Net Operating Profit After Taxes, or NOPAT.

Then, add back the non-cash charges that appear on the Cash Flow Statement, primarily Depreciation & Amortization, and reflect the Change in Working Capital, which may be either positive or negative (follow the sign used on the company's CFS). And then subtract Capital Expenditures (CapEx)."

Wall Street internships are insanely competitive.

Last summer, Goldman Sachs had 59,000 applicants for roughly 2,900 intern positions.

So if you're going to drop your resume in a stack with thousands of others, you want it to look good.

We spoke with a former analyst at a bulge-bracket bank who's been through the process both as an applicant and, on the other side, as an analyst screening candidates.

He said there were only a few things the banks really look at on your résumé — and it's important to get them right.

Here's what you need to know.

SEE ALSO: The key to scoring a top internship on Wall Street

The most important thing on your résumé is your GPA.

Your grade point average is "the first thing you look at on the résumé," the former analyst said. And it should be 3.6, preferable 3.7 or higher.

If it isn't quite as impressive as you'd like, there is a workaround: "Show it to 2 decimals if the decimal is under 5," the person said. "But if the second decimal of the GPA is over 5, round to the nearest 10th."

So if your GPA is 3.83, don't round down. But if it's 3.65 or 3.66, then round up and show it as 3.7.

Also, if you have a good GPA in your major, you can include that too — but there is no substitute for the overall GPA, the analyst said.

The next most important thing? Experience.

If you're a college junior applying for a summer internship, it's really important that you have some relevant experience from your previous summer.

The analyst said that even though sophomore-year internships were usually "soft" internships, the point is that you have something finance- or business-related on there.

Learn how to write about experience.

Don't just write what you did at your past gig. Point to the impact your work had.

The analyst gave an example of a weak experience line: "Used DCF, comparable companies, and precedent transactions to value Coca Cola."

Versus a strong one: "Used DCF, comparable companies, and precedent transactions to value Coca Cola; analysis showed that the company was undervalued by 15%."

But don't exaggerate! "It's so obvious to tell if someone is exaggerating," the former analyst said.

It's job interview season on Wall Street.

Over the coming weeks and months, recruiters from top investment banks will meet with tens of thousands of students on college campuses and during in-house interviews. 

For anyone hoping to build a career in finance, this is your chance to show your stuff.

To help you out, Morgan Stanley published a list of the 10 most common mistakes its senior interviewers encounter in job interviews.

Wherever you end up interviewing, these are definitely things you want to avoid.

SEE ALSO: The 5 questions you're bound to be asked in a Wall Street internship interview

SEE ALSO: Want to intern at a Wall Street bank? Here's the first thing they'll look for on your résumé

1. Not doing the research.

"It's the single biggest and most common mistake made: Going into a job interview without having researched what the job involves, or what the division does. If you're going for an Investment Banking position, know what deals the firm has done recently and be prepared to speak about their highlights."

2. Not wanting the job.

"Don't tell us you're applying for a particular job just so you can get a foot in the door for a different role. It's OK to have a long-term career goal of working with external clients, for example, but you need to explain why you are interested in starting out in a non-client-facing position you might be interviewing for, how it fits your skill-set and helps your longer-term career objective."

3. Padding the Resume.

"Don't put things on your CV that you can't live up to. Everything on there is fair game, so you need to be able to elaborate on every line. If you say you are fluent in a certain language, then we'll expect you can prove it."

Entry-level jobs on Wall Street are notoriously grueling.

Life as a junior banker has traditionally meant long hours, late nights, and doing the grunt work that the senior bankers pass on.

Goldman Sachs is trying to change that.

The Wall Street giant announced a handful of initiatives Thursday designed to make things a little easier for junior bankers — and to encourage them to stay on longer than the two-year mark, when many bankers leave.

Earlier promotions

Typically investment banks hire "analysts," or junior bankers, for a two-year program directly out of college.

After the analysts put in their two years, most move on to jobs with hedge funds or private-equity firms — or in another industry altogether.

Bankers who stay on usually do a third year as an analyst before being promoted to associate. Several years after that, they are promoted to vice president.

Goldman did away with its two-year analyst program a couple of years ago in an effort to encourage junior bankers to see themselves at the bank more long-term.

Now, the bank is going to start promoting top investment-banking analysts to associates after only two years at the firm.

That means they'll get a pay raise sooner than they normally would. Across Wall Street, associates earn about $63,000 more than analysts, on average.

And, importantly, analysts will hear about their likely promotion earlier on, too — around six months into their first year at the bank. That's the same time that hedge funds and private-equity firms start reaching out to the bank analysts to recruit them.

Doing rotations

Goldman is also introducing a formal "mobility program" for junior investment bankers in their third year.

That means that after completing two years in one assignment, analysts — some of whom are promoted to associates — will go on rotational assignment for another full year.

The move could be small — within one particular business or business unit — or it could be as extreme as moving to the other side of the world for a year.

"We're basically going to tell people: You spend three years with us, you're going to get two distinct experiences," said Goldman's cohead of investment banking, David Solomon.

The bank will also hire between 10 and 50 new managers to oversee the junior bankers. A new role, called "Junior Banker Sponsor," will be created in each regional office.

Leaving the grunt work to the robots

A third initiative will see changes in the type of work that Goldman's junior bankers are doing.

One of the reasons investment banking is becoming a less attractive option for college graduates is because of the monotonous, grueling work that junior bankers have to do.

One hedge fund intern hoping to skip the banking process and go directly to the buy side told us: "A monkey could do the job of a junior banker."

So Goldman is introducing new technological platforms to pick up some of the grunt work. That way, analysts can focus on more "value-add" work.

"We've been very, very focused on building out technology platforms that help us do that," Solomon said.

He added: "A lot of the things that we do for clients have historically been very human-capital intensive, but with technology today and the platforms you can develop and the way information is used today, a lot of this stuff is not as value-added as it used to be."

The bank has already introduced new platforms to help analysts put together initial public offering timelines and fee runs. Each of those tasks used to take bankers about six hours. The new platforms can do them in about 30 minutes.

A new "Ask GS" service, built from an algorithm, has reduced the number of email blasts that analysts send by 98%, according to Luke Sarsfield, COO of Goldman's investment-banking division.

And going forward, the bank will introduce other platforms, including one to help analysts with the grunt work surrounding mergers-and-acquisitions deals.

"We're building a technological solution around a deal life cycle," said Sarsfield.

Goldman Sachs already has robust strategic-services resources for analysts. Resources range from presentation services that will make nice-looking slides for analysts to a data group that can pull multiples or build charts at a moment's notice.

This initiative will expand upon those services, which are all available to junior bankers on a proprietary company website.

Obviously, Solomon said, the firm will never be able to retain 100% of its junior bankers.

"Everything that we're doing is to try to give us the best opportunity to develop the best of those people and have a subset of them want to build their careers here," he said. "Not all of them, but a subset of them."

Find more on junior bankers, interns, and young Wall Street here.

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NOW WATCH: The 10 trickiest Goldman Sachs interview questions

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has often referred to his firm as a "tech company."

Now we're starting to see what he means by that.

On Thursday, the banking behemoth announced a new initiative designed to make the lives of junior investment bankers easier — by letting technology do more of the work for them.

More value-add

Investment banking has become a less attractive option for bright, young college graduates in recent years.

One of the reasons for that is the monotonous, grueling work that junior bankers have to do — from building spreadsheets to putting together slides for extensive pitch books that likely no one will read.

The plan behind Goldman's new initiative is to enable overworked investment-banking analysts to focus on more value-add tasks instead.

Of course, the changes could put junior bankers out of work, too. At the least, it could mean that there are fewer openings for analysts in the future.

"We've been very, very focused on building out technology platforms," said Goldman's cohead of investment banking, David Solomon.

He continued: "A lot of the things that we do for clients have historically been very human-capital intensive, but with technology today and the platforms you can develop, and the way information is used today, a lot of this stuff is not as value-added as it used to be."

Investing in tech

Goldman has amped up its investments in tech resources in recent months and years, hiring computer engineers and investing in external technology companies whose products the bank can use.

As part of that drive, the bank named George Lee, a top tech-investment banker, CIO of the investment bank about a year and a half ago.

"He's been massively focused on working with a team of [strategists] and engineers to drive a lot of this stuff and figure out how technology can play a much more important role in our external interactions and our interaction inside our business," Solomon said of Lee. "We really believe this is where it's going and we want to be in front of it."

In April, Business Insider reported that about 9,000 of Goldman's 33,000 full-time employees were engineers and programmers.

And in November last year, the firm led a $15 million funding round in financial-data service Kensho.

Kensho says it uses statistical computing, user-friendly visual interfaces, and unstructured data engineering to create analytics platforms. Essentially, it helps automate knowledge work and answers complex financial questions in real time.

Letting robots run the numbers

The bank has already introduced some new tech platforms, including one that helps analysts put together initial public offering timelines and fee runs. Each of those tasks used to take bankers about six hours; the new tools can do them in about 30 minutes.

Luke Sarsfield, COO of Goldman's investment-banking division, described another new tool: an "Ask GS" service, built from an algorithm, that answers any general questions that junior bankers may have. It's already reduced the number of email blasts from analysts by 98%, Sarsfield said.

Goldman Sachs already has robust strategic-services resources for junior bankers. Resources range from presentation services that will make nice-looking slides for analysts to a data group that can pull multiples or build charts at a moment's notice.

This initiative will expand upon those services, which are all available to junior bankers on a proprietary company website.

Going forward, the firm will also introduce new platforms, including one to help analysts with the grunt work surrounding mergers-and-acquisitions deals.

"We're building a technological solution around a deal life cycle," said Sarsfield.

SEE ALSO: Exploding startup valuations are changing how Wall Street banks work with tech companies

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NOW WATCH: The 10 trickiest Goldman Sachs interview questions

NEW YORK — Morgan Stanley, better known for underwriting bonds than for retail banking, plans to offer savings accounts and certificates of deposits next year to wring more profit from its wealth-management clients, executives told Reuters.

The bank has offered checking accounts and credit cards for years, but it is launching more consumer-banking products and giving brokers bonuses if clients use them.

The goal is to win more of the assets customers keep at rivals such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. or Bank of America Corp. Right now, just 1% of Morgan Stanley's more than 3.5 million wealth-management clients actively use its retail-banking products.

"You shouldn't have to deal with two or three financial institutions," Eric Heaton, president of Morgan Stanley US Banks, said in an interview with Reuters. "Just deal with us."

Morgan Stanley has no plans to build retail bank branches, and will instead rely on its 16,000 brokers to sell the new products.

The effort may leave it looking a little more like a conventional bank, a move regulators have been encouraging since the crisis. Its chief rival, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., took a similar step in August, when it agreed to buy General Electric Capital Bank's online deposit business.

The move is also likely to boost the bottom line — clients who actively use Morgan Stanley's banking products hold on average 7% more assets at the firm than those who don't. The annual fees customers pay are often based on a percentage of the client's assets at the firm. That fee income tends to be relatively stable over time compared with many investment-banking businesses.

The importance of stable results was driven home for the bank's investors last month when it released third-quarter earnings that showed revenue in its bond-trading business plunging 42%, excluding an accounting adjustment that investors often ignore, while revenue in its wealth unit, which includes brokerage fees, interest income, and other items, fell just 3.5%.

Morgan Stanley's fee income and commissions have been falling since the beginning of 2014, which the bank has made up for by generating more revenue from areas including lending.

After multibillion-dollar trading losses brought Morgan Stanley uncomfortably close to failure during the financial crisis, the bank agreed to buy Citigroup's Smith Barney business in pieces starting in 2009, turning its retail brokerage business from being an afterthought into the source of about half the bank's revenue.

Goldman, by contrast, remains much more heavily reliant on bond trading, stock underwriting, and other traditional investment-banking businesses to drive its bottom line. Investors seem to be siding with Goldman Sachs now — its shares trade at about 1.15 times their book value, an accounting measure of their net value, while Morgan Stanley's trade at about their book value.

Lofty goal

In addition to fee income, banking products offer more deposit funding for Morgan Stanley, which regulators view positively. During a financial crisis, depositors are less likely than corporate bond investors and other lenders to flee when trouble is brewing in markets or at a bank. When rates rise, deposit funding is often cheaper than other forms of borrowing.

Morgan Stanley now has around $139 billion of deposits in its bank unit and is aiming to get up to $200 billion in the next several years. To help its effort, it has assembled a team of card and payment executives, many of whom led similar businesses at Merrill Lynch.

Tom Duffy, who heads banking services within wealth management, says his product development team has more than doubled to around 34 since he joined the bank in 2011.

Morgan Stanley's overall deposits, at around $147 billion, fund a much smaller portion of its balance sheet than most other banks' — its deposits equal about 18% of assets, compared with more than 50% for both JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Winning more client assets may not be easy, analysts noted.

"It's a lofty goal to be the primary bank for every one of their wealth-management clients," said Glenn Schorr, an analyst with Evercore ISI. But even if the bank wins just a sliver of business from customers, Morgan Stanley will be better off, he said.

Some financial advisers also question whether they will be able to push their clients, who may prefer to conduct their everyday banking at a traditional bank branch, into changing their daily behavior.

"Five or six years ago, the whole banking effort at Morgan Stanley was very embryonic — we were playing catch-up in the space," said Greg Fleming, Morgan Stanley's president of wealth management. "We've been gearing up for this over the last few years and building out our technology, which is why this is more of a 2016 initiative."

The technology Fleming referred to includes online banking and mobile-banking software.

Boosting retail-banking products will help to expand wealth management's profit margins. Last quarter, the pretax margin in the wealth business rose to 23%, at the lower end of the bank's long-term goals, and in line with Bank of America's wealth unit over the same period.

In addition to adding executives to Duffy's product development team, Morgan Stanley hired eight cash-management specialists and sent them to 60 wealth-management offices around the country earlier this year to train financial advisers and their support staff about the firm's different cash-management products.

It has also built up customer service teams of more than 50 representatives in Salt Lake City and Columbus, Ohio, and who answer clients' questions about everyday banking.

This isn't the first time Morgan Stanley has dealt with retail products. In the late 1990s, it merged with Dean Witter, Discover & Company, giving it a retail brokerage and a credit-card business. The bank spun off Discover in 2007.

But Morgan Stanley never had a complete retail bank, which hurt it from 2009 to 2013, when it bought the Smith Barney retail brokerage unit from Citigroup. It lost some top advisers during that period because it could not offer as many banking products as Citigroup.

It began ramping up its lending business, and views its latest push into retail banking products as the next step in its bringing its business more in line with Bank of America's Merrill Lynch, for example.

It still has ground to gain. Interest income at Morgan Stanley's wealth management unit in the third quarter was $777 million, compared with $1.38 billion at Bank of America's global wealth and investment management unit, which includes Merrill Lynch wealth management, US Trust, and related businesses.

(Reporting by Olivia Oran in New York; editing by Dan Wilchins and John Pickering)

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Kevin Russell, the global head of equity trading at Citigroup, left the bank today, according to people familiar with the situation. 

He was promoted to the role overseeing stock trading last year, replacing Mike Pringle, who left the bank to take a role at a hedge fund. 

His departure follows that of Michael Caperonis, who had run equities trading in the Americas. Caperonis left in early November to take a bigger role at Japanese bank Nomura, according to Bloomberg.

The moves are the latest in a line of changes at the top of Wall Street's equities businesses. Business Insider reported in October that Goldman Sachs' head of US stock trading, Matthew Mallgrave, has quit to join Credit Suisse. 

Equities divisions have had a good year so far. 

The top ten banks made $24.6 billion from equities sales and trading in the first half according to data from Coalition, up 18% from the same period last year. In contrast, revenues in fixed income, currencies and commodities, and traditional investment-banking activities, such as advising on mergers and acquisitions and capital raisings, fell. 

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It has been a rough year for investment banks. 

And it is all because of the big banks' fixed income, currencies and commodities — or FICC — divisions, which for so long have powered earnings.

According to analytics company Coalition, the FICC divisions at the ten biggest Wall Street bank generated $52.8 billion in revenues in the first nine months of 2015.

That compares with equities sales and trading, which made $35.4 billion, and traditional investment banking, which generated $29.6 billion.

The FICC divisions have suffered over the past year, and thethird quarter was especially brutal. Third quarter fixed income revenues across the ten biggest banks fell 18% against a year ago, according to Coalition.

The slides below, taken from a Coalition report released Monday, illustrate just how terrible the year has been for the FICC businesses.

Take a look:

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FICC revenues over the first nine months of the year are down 9% year-on-year, with credit revenues down a third and securitization revenues down 21%. The only bright spot is foreign exchange.

The third quarter was especially tough, with FICC revenues down 18% compared to the same quarter last year.

Front office headcount in FICC is down 3% year-on-year, extending a trend of just cuts dating back to 2010.

It was a rough quarter for Wall Street banks last time around, and at least one team of analysts doesn't think this one will turn out any better.

Deutsche Bank's Matt O'Connor wrote in a note on Monday that he's lowering his fourth-quarter earnings-per-share estimates for major US banks by 7% on average.

"Expectations seemed reasonably low coming out of 3Q, but recent [management] commentary and data suggest revenues may be even weaker than expected," O'Connor wrote.

"Our reductions primarily reflect weaker fixed income trading and ibanking revenues," he said.

The note focuses on Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Citi, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Last week, JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank chief, Daniel Pinto, said that the bank would see fourth-quarter trading revenues fall by about 15% from the third quarter.

Here are all of Deutsche Bank's fourth-quarter estimates. They are 6% below consensus.

Investment banking revenues "seem to be tracking weaker than expected," O'Connor wrote. He expects investment banking fees to decline nearly 10% year on year.

M&A and equity capital markets activity are "flattish" or flat compared to a year ago, while debt capital markets activity is weak across the board, according to the note.

In fixed income, currencies, and commodities, O'Connor noted that macro products like rates and foreign exchange have softened because of less volatility, "flattish" dealer inventory, and clients who appear to be waiting to see what the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank will do in December.

Credit and mortgage issuance is sluggish, while in equities, cash volumes are weak.

Here's how O'Connor's team thinks trading will compare with prior periods at each of the banks:

• At Goldman Sachs, FICC was weak in the second and third quarters, so revenues could rise slightly, quarter on quarter, despite there being no material improvement.
• Morgan Stanley's third-quarter FICC weakness "seemed to suggest 4Q overall may not be much better." There is also new management overseeing that division, so it could take some time for them to figure out their strategy.
• For JPMorgan, O'Connor expects a 15% seasonal decline from the third quarter, as has been the trend in recent years.
• Bank of America and Citi should both have an easier time matching their performance, year on year, as they both had weak fourth quarters last year in FICC.
• Citi had a one-time write up in the third quarter, which makes it a tough comparison.

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Goldman Sachs is one of the most sought-after places to intern in North America.

It's also highly competitive. Last summer, the firm had 59,000 applicants for roughly 2,900 intern positions.

To help internship — and job — candidates navigate through the application process, Goldman published a Q&A with its head of University Relations, Taylor MacKenzie, on its website.

Her job is to help prepare students for the recruiting experience at Goldman Sachs.

Here are the highlights of the Q&A.

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Question: How should I prepare for an interview with Goldman Sachs?

Answer:

Do your research! Start by determining what areas of the firm you’re interested in and why.

Our Careers Quiz, which helps you explore the variety of opportunities in our different divisions through a series of fun questions, is a great place to start and our website offers a lot of in depth information about divisions and the firm.

Once you’ve decided which divisions you’re most interested in, prepare to explain what specifically interests you about those divisions and what traits you have that could make you successful in those areas.

It’s all about drawing connections between your skillset and the role you want to work in at Goldman Sachs.

You should also read up on current events and industry trends related to those divisions in order to understand them in a larger context.

Q: What is the most common mistake students make in interviews?

Answer:

The most common mistake students make is not communicating concrete ways in which they’ve made an impact in their past jobs or other experiences.

For every work experience you’ve had and for every organization you’re involved in, be prepared to go beyond what’s on your resume and speak to specific projects you worked on or efforts you spearheaded.

Provide details on what your responsibilities were, what skills you applied and what learnings you took away from the experience. Then quantify the results.

Goldman Sachs is a firm that offers the opportunity to make an impact at a very early stage in your career so that’s something we always want to hear from you.  

Q: When interviewing with multiple people, is it alright to deliver similar responses to different interviewers?

Answer:

The most important thing in any interview is being your authentic self. Don’t feel like you have to change up your story simply for the sake of variety.

However, if you find an opportunity to tailor your message to the person you are interviewing with that’s usually an effective strategy.

Take note of the interviewer’s background and job function which they generally discuss at the beginning of the interview; you may find you have a perfect way to position your experience that will resonate with that individual.   

Wall Street recruiting season is in full swing.

Students should have begun perfecting their résumés for investment bank recruiters in September. In October, they will have kicked off informal interviews and info sessions.

Now, it's interview— and offer — time.

If you're lucky, you might get more than one offer. But how do you land the one you really want — your dream internship offer?

And if you do get multiple offers, how do you choose which one to take? 

Business Insider spoke to a few recent Wall Street interns about their strategies.

It starts with leverage

One recent summer analyst, who asked to remain anonymous, described how she managed to turn a consulting offer into an internship with a competitive team at a bulge bracket bank.

In her sophomore year summer, the analyst scored a Deloitte internship for the following summer. But she knew she really wanted to get into banking, so she used that offer, which had a November deadline, to get an accelerated offer with a small investment bank in Baltimore, where she was from.

Having scored that internship, she decided to push a little further.

"I was like, 'Wait, I was raised in Baltimore and I've been here forever. I kind of want to try going to New York.'"

So she started networking with all the alumni she knew at bulge bracket banks, using her current offer as a talking point.

One offered her a "super day"— an important step in the application process that usually follows a first-round interview. During a "super day" students are invited to a bank's headquarters for a full day of back-to-back interviews with different vice presidents and managing directors.

The summer analyst got an offer following that super day with only two weeks to respond — one of which was a holiday.

She used the offer to score interviews and super days at a handful of other firms in that time. But in the end, she wound up taking the original bulge bracket bank offer.

It's all about that first offer

That summer analyst's story is not uncommon.

For many Wall Street interns, getting an offer fast from a top firm is key, regardless of which bank it is with.

Here's how one Deutsche Bank intern put it:

"There's the upper echelon ... the bulge bracket banks, but outside of those, they're all very similar," he said.  "Deutsche was just kind of one of the ones I got into early."

He said the bank "hooked" him in with an early interview and offer and only gave him one week to decide.

The first intern described the whole process of using one offer as leverage for another like "a snowball effect" that allows you to land one interview after another. But ultimately, she said, there's only one end goal for young Wall Street hopefuls:

"They want that offer as soon as possible."

Find more on junior bankers, interns, and young Wall Street here.

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Wall Street banks are well-aware of the potential change technology could bring to its field — and new data shows they don't want to miss out on a chance to team up with financial tech startups early on.

According to CB Insights, big banks have been stepping up their investments in financial tech startups in a major way this year, with more than a third of the deals since 2009 happening in the first 11 months of 2015. Fifteen of the 44 total investments made in that span were done this year, compared to just 9 in the previous year and 4 in 2009.

Citi Ventures, Citi Group's venture arm, has been leading the pack with 20 total investments in the 6-year period, but Goldman Sachs has been the most active this year, with funding in Circle Internet Financial and FinanceIt, according to CB Insights. The report also notes that a lot of the banks are now co-investing in the same deals, as they did with the $100 million round in Symphony, the communications app that's considered to be a Bloomberg terminal competitor.

Financial tech startups have been drawing a lot of interest lately for offering services that were traditionally only available through banks, such as lending, payments, and wealth management, in a cheaper and more efficient way. Companies like Lending Club, Square, and Venmo are some of the biggest names in this space.

In fact, a recent survey by software company Temenos showed that bankers consider technology to be the biggest threat to their business, while more than a half of them said they plan on spending more on IT this year.

Some of the biggest names in finance have also been sending warning signs to banks over the rise of financial tech startups.

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon wrote in a note earlier this year, "There are hundreds of startups with a lot of brains and money working on various alternatives to traditional banking," while ex-Barclays CEO Antony Jenkins recently said, "We will see massive pressure on incumbent banks, which will struggle to implement new technologies at the same pace as their new rivals."

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Ever wonder which college major is most likely to get you a job on Wall Street?

Business Insider turned to Emolument, a salary benchmarking website that collects self-reported pay data, to find out which college majors are most common in finance.

They gathered data on 840 finance professionals in New York at the analyst, associate, vice president, and director level.

The respondents come from a number of firms, including Citigroup, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Barclays and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, as well as smaller banks, asset managers, and hedge funds. They are all front-office professionals, and two-thirds work at banks, while one-third works on the buy-side.

Emolument found that, while the clear majority of Wall Street professionals studied something related to finance, there are definitely a few history and geography majors out there. 

So humanities students, don't give up hope.

Here is the breakdown.

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At the analyst level, accounting, business, and finance are by far the most popular majors for Wall Streeters. Economics follows in second place.

The same majors are even more common among associates on Wall Street.

Accounting, business, and finance majors are the clear majority at the vice president level, too.