Morgan Stanley reported profit that missed analysts’ estimates as it followed competitors in posting a drop in fixed-income trading revenue and said it had a loss in its Asian private-equity investments.

Net income fell to $1.02 billion, or 48 cents a share, from $1.69 billion, or 83 cents, a year earlier, the New York-based company said Monday in a statement. Excluding an accounting gain, profit was 34 cents a share, missing the 63-cent average estimate of 23 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Morgan Stanley joins rivals including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in reporting a drop in bond-trading revenue as credit spreads widened. Chief Executive Officer James Gorman has sought to cut the amount of capital his trading unit requires in order to boost returns.

“It was a difficult quarter,” Devin Ryan, an analyst at JMP Group Inc. in New York, said in an interview before the results were announced. “I think we’ll see evidence of the very challenged FICC backdrop,” he said, referring to the fixed- income, currencies and commodities business.

Morgan Stanley shares dropped 19 percent in the third quarter as market volatility jumped, asset values fell and the Federal Reserve chose not to raise interest rates. The stock surged 24 percent in 2014, leading the biggest U.S. investment banks for a second straight year.

Goldman, JPMorgan

Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan last week reported profit that missed analysts’ estimates on declines in bond-trading revenue. Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. posted profit that benefited from expense reductions.

Morgan Stanley posted the only first-half increase in fixed-income trading revenue among the five largest Wall Street banks, as well as the largest jump in overall trading revenue.

Earlier this month, Morgan Stanley rewarded Ted Pick for taking the firm’s equity business to the top spot globally by putting him in charge of all trading. The firm also named Dan Simkowitz, who was co-head of the unit that underwrites stocks and bonds, as head of its asset-management unit.

Pick takes on a fixed-income, currencies and commodity unit that’s been reducing assets and cutting costs to achieve a 10 percent return on equity. Part of that effort included agreeing in May to sell its oil-merchanting business to Castleton Commodities International LLC, which will pay more than $1 billion.

Simkowitz’s investment-management group, which used to be run by brokerage president Greg Fleming, is the firm’s smallest division, and also the one with the highest profitability. Fleming had set a goal of $500 billion of assets by the end of next year, about a quarter more than it has now.

Morgan Stanley has become more reliant on its retail brokerage since completing its purchase of Citigroup Inc.’s Smith Barney two years ago. While analysts estimated the division continued its progress in boosting margins in the third quarter, many predicted revenue would fall in the fourth quarter, because some fees are tied to asset levels at the beginning of the period.