[LONDON] Morgan Stanley brought in the most revenue from commodities of any of the major investment banks in 2018, data from analytics firm Coalition showed on Thursday.

The bank beat rival JPMorgan into second place and Citibank and Goldman Sachs into joint third in Coalition's ranking of the 12 largest global investment banks' commodities businesses.

The score caps a rapid rise for Morgan Stanley, which in the 2017 rankings tied for first place with JPMorgan and before that had not been inside the top three since 2014, when it placed third.

For Goldman, traditionally a major force in commodities, it is a partial return to form after it fell from the top three in 2017, after its commodities business suffered one its worst years on record.

Citi's ranking was unchanged from 2017.

Coalition did not give figures for each bank, but said in February overall revenues at the top 12 investment banks from commodity trading, selling derivatives and other activities in the sector were US$3.6 billion last year, up 45 per cent from 2017.

That increase however follows a long period of declining revenues as banks exited or shrank their commodity businesses due to more stringent regulation and poor performance from the sector.

The 12 banks in Coalition's ranking also include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Societe Generale and UBS.

Reuters