On trading places

Bankers, wealth pros in the money

Big bonuses are back on Wall Street — but not for everybody.

Investment bankers and wealth managers can expect 9- to 10-percent pay bumps this year, while most other financial workers are probably going to see their total compensation shrink from 2016, according to a report from headhunter Options Group.

“Investment bankers are probably going to have a better bonus season than their sales and trading peers,” said Michael Karp, Options’ chief executive. Still, “superstars are going to get paid well,” he added.

The report, which the company releases annually, gives a fuller view into Wall Street’s pay estimates than were released last month by New York City Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

On Oct. 31, DiNapoli’s office estimated that the average Wall Street bonus would rise by 3.8 percent, to $143,462, largely based on an excellent start to the year in trading.

Those estimates are based on tax receipts, which don’t capture compensation like deferred stock rewards, and don’t break down how financial employees do by their line of work.

According to the Options Group report:

Most traders are getting slammed after a calm year. Bond traders can expect an average 11-percent drop in total take-home pay for 2017, the biggest for the group, while stock traders’ dough is due to fall 10 percent.

Wealth managers are making big bucks off the surge in millionaires, and are forecast to win a 10-percent pay raise.

Investment bankers should see a 9 percent bump-up, driven by the surge in mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings and debt issuance.

The only group in trading that will be seeing a raise are programmers, quants and data scientists, with bondtrading employees due a 5percent increase, and 3 percent for stock-trading types.

Human traders have been increasingly replaced by trading algorithms and robots since the financial crisis, as banks looked to cut costs and competition drove down prices.

Still, even though jobchoking regulations are easing during the Trump era, there’s been no slowdown in Wall Street plowing into electronic trading, according to the report.

The news isn’t all grim. While this year’s bonuses are lower than those for 2016, last year was a bang-up year for trading.

The average banker’s compensation rose last year to $388,000, according to a March report from the comptroller’s office. About a quarter of all financial employees made $250,000 — compared to 7 percent of employees in other industries.