The best and the worst front office banking jobs in mid-2018

If you're wondering which front office banking jobs are thriving in 2018 and which are not (Deutsche Bank's equities division aside), Coalition's new report on the granular performance of banks' businesses in the first quarter offers answers. Some areas of banking are growing fast. Others, are not.

The first chart below, which shows the percentage change in revenues by business area between the first quarter of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018, splits out the thrivers and the flounderers. In the first corner are very clearly equity derivatives businesses (revenues up 56% year-on-year), commodities businesses and G10 FX desks. In the second, are very clearly G10 rates (revenues down 18%), credit and securitisation.

The second chart below shows how these percentage changes were manifested in absolute terms.

Equity derivatives revenues rose by a total of $1.9bn year-on-year in the first quarter. This helps explain banks' sudden enthusiasm for hiring in the space. Coalition attributes the growth in equity derivatives revenues  to, 'flow derivatives and strategic equity transactions," particularly in the Americas.

Conversely, Coalition says global G10 rates revenues fell by $1.4bn over the same period thanks to poorly performing flow books, weak repo desks and lower issuance of U.S. structured notes. - For the moment, Deutsche's decision to significantly reduce U.S. rates and repo trading makes a lot of sense.

Hover over the charts to see the numbers