The Future Fab Five in Finance

Today, Bloomberg’s Chart of the Day paints a picture of what the future of investment banking might look like.

In the graphic, the stock prices of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citi have been charted over the past nine months—beginning in September 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed. What the colored lines show is that Goldman’s share price (the pink line) has just about returned to its September 2008 price, while JPMorgan Chase (red) and Barclays (blue) are about 90 percent there. Morgan Stanley (green) isn’t too far behind (about 82 percent of the way), but BofA (yellow) and Citi (a pale yellow, or light tan) are still struggling, severely. BofA’s share price is a mere 30 percent of what it was before the Brothers went down, Citi’s less than 25 percent what it once was.

So, what you could be looking at where the pink, red, blue and green lines nearly converge is the new bulge bracket: Goldman, Barclays, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley.

It should be pointed out that Credit Suisse’s stock price, though not charted in the graphic, is also right at pre-Lehman bankruptcy levels. So, add the Swiss to the mix as well.