OREANDA-NEWS. July 23, 2015. Pinning down the financial performance of energy commodity trading at top financial institutions is complicated by the manner in which banks segment their operations and lump together certain revenue numbers.

While differences exist from bank to bank, for the most part the big banks place commodity trading within their fixed-income unit of their investment bank division. Low commodity prices, less volatility, and thus lower volumes traded, have all had an impact.

A review of some of the numbers just released for the second quarter of 2015 at three top banks suggests that commodity trading in Q2 took a big hit. This follows a first quarter in which fixed-income numbers rose on what bank analysts said at the time was bullish volumes.

Goldman Sachs reported on July 16 that its net revenue in what it calls “fixed income, currency and commodities client execution” was \\$1.6 billion for the second quarter of 2015. That quarterly total was 49% lower than the first quarter revenue of \\$3.1 billion.

Goldman’s Q2 2015 performance was 28% lower than the second quarter of 2014.

Without breaking out the specific numbers, Goldman conceded that net revenue in the second quarter from commodities trading was “also lower.”

"During the quarter, Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities Client Execution operated in an environment generally characterized by lower levels of client activity and less favorable market-making conditions compared with the first quarter of 2015,” the Wall Street firm said.

On July 19, Morgan Stanley reported a 31% decline in its fixed income and commodities revenue in the second quarter compared to the first quarter 2015. It said that revenue was \\$1.38 billion in Q2, compared to \\$2 billion in the first quarter 2015.

In a year-over-year comparison, however, Morgan Stanley said that its Q2 2015 revenue was 30% above its second quarter 2014 total of \\$1.06 billion.

In May, Morgan Stanley sold its Global Oil Merchanting unit of its commodities division to Castleton Commodities International for an undisclosed sum. Earlier this month, Royal Dutch Shell’s European supply and trading arm said it will buy Morgan Stanley’s European natural gas and power trading books for an undisclosed sum.

In a statement, the London-based firm said it has signed a binding sales and purchase agreement for Morgan Stanley’s portfolio of trades.

On July 16, Citigroup reported its second quarter earnings and said that its “fixed income markets” segment in the quarter had \\$3.06 billion of revenue, which was down 12% compared to the first quarter 2015, and down 1% compared to the second quarter of 2014.

In terms of commodity trading, Citigroup has been on a rebuilding path for the past year. In October 2014, it bought Deutsche Bank’s  power trading books covering the Electric Reliability Council of Texas market as well as the East and Midcontinent regions. In mid-December, Citigroup announced it was buying Credit Suisse’s precious metals, coal, iron ore, freight, crude oil and oil products, and US and European natural gas books.

Australian financial institution Macquarie has been particularly active lately in acquisitions of hard assets.

In October, the Macquarie Group bought Deutsche Bank’s uranium book, suggesting that Macquarie was pushing deeper into global energy commodity trading.

On Monday, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the \\$4.7 billion acquisition of the Louisiana-based utility Cleco, and its 11 power generators with 3,340 MW of capacity, by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets and John Hancock Financial.

Macquarie was third in Platts Gas Daily’s last rankings of North American natural gas marketers.

The British bank Barclays has told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it has a number of possible bidders for physical natural gas assets it hopes to auction off by July 29.

Last week a merchant power generator in the US complained that its markets were being hit by illiquidity. For many markets, and for some time, banks have been the provider of liquidity in a trading business that is capital intensive. Commodity markets that have seen the rise of big merchant traders still need the big banks.