Pre-tax profits at Morgan Stanley's institutional securities unit rose fivefold from their year-ago level as surging credit and rates trading drove a gain of more than $1 billion to the unit's bottom line.

Morgan Stanley followed its Wall Street rivals in reaping the benefits of a strong third quarter for banks' fixed-income businesses. On October 19 it posted a set of results that showed revenues from fixed-income sales and trading more than doubled from $583 million a year ago to $1.5 billion this time.