There's Really Only One Group Of Wall Streeters That Need To Worry About Their Bonuses This Year

Most Wall Street employees can look forward to year-end bonuses growing 5 to 10% on average this year, according to a new survey from Johnson Associates.

But fixed-income traders won't fair as well.

Banks will let their employees know about bonuses in a few months. Compensation can range from hundreds of thousands of dollars into the millions.

Fixed-income traders, dogged by a crazy year of interest rate fluctuation, are the only subgroup likely to see a dip in bonus pay, according to the survey. From the New York Times's Rachel Abrams:

The predictions reflect a new reality for Wall Street's biggest banks, whose fixed-income revenues have plummeted amid a choppy bond market. Banks including Morgan Stanley have expanded their wealth-management divisions, which generate fees from the assets they handle, to balance the instability from fixed income.

"What's interesting is, for decades almost every year the big Wall Street firms were the highest-paid firms in financial services," said Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates. Now, however, the big asset managers are "on par" with what those big firms are making, he said.

Bloomberg reported recently that bonuses will likely disappoint this season "amid investor pressure to improve return on equity."

Read the full report at the New York Times »