Morgan Stanley's quarterly profit more than halved as the Wall Street bank's trading and investment banking businesses took a hit from market volatility early in the year.
But today's results from the bank still beat market expectations.
It said its earnings fell 54.4% to $1.06 billion, or 55 cents per share, in the quarter ended March 31, from $2.31 billion, or $1.18 per share, a year earlier.
Excluding an accounting adjustment, the bank also earned 55 cents per share.
Analysts on average had expected earnings of 46 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters.
Sliding commodity and oil prices, worries about the Chinese economy and uncertainty about US interest rates made for wobbly markets in January and February.
These concerns scared off traders and investors as well as companies hoping to list on stock exchanges.
All of the big US banks that have released results for the first quarter have reported lower revenue from investment banking and trading.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley's traditional rival, will wrap up the earnings season for big US banks tomorrow.
"The first quarter was characterised by challenging market conditions and muted client activity," chief executive James Gorman said.
"While we see some signs of market recovery, global uncertainties continue to weigh on investor activity," he added.
Morgan Stanley's stock fell about 21% in the quarter - the sharpest decline of any big US bank.
The bank said today that its adjusted revenue from fixed income and commodities trading fell 54.1% to $873m in the quarter, while equities trading revenue declined 9.3% to $2.06 billion.
Morgan Stanley has been shifting its focus away from more volatile areas such as bond trading and towards more stable businesses such as wealth management.
Revenue from wealth management fell 4.3% to $3.67 billion during the quarter, the bank said.
