Morgan Stanley's underlying revenues from both fixed income trading and traditional investment banking work fell at a slower rate than most of its rivals on Wall Street, as the bank's institutional securities unit trimmed losses in the fourth quarter.

Revenues from fixed income and commodities sales and trading, excluding valuation adjustments, slipped 14% to $599 million over the fourth quarter - matching the percentage decline of Wall Street rival JP Morgan and beating the 16% fall at Citigroup, the 21% decline at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and the 30% drop at Goldman Sachs.