Ever since Michael Lewis described equities as “lower than whale shit on the ocean floor” in Liar’s Poker in the late 1980s, the equities business has played second fiddle to fixed income. But banks that have kept the faith and maintained their equities business in the face of weak revenues since the financial crisis are set for high rewards this year and victory for the first time in a decade in the grapple for power with their muscular counterparts in fixed income.

Rather than just a cyclical shift, changes in the regulatory landscape mean this could be a permanent fixture.