Traders in investment-grade credit at the vice-president level made $400,000 to $600,000 in total compensation last year, with high performers earning $800,000 or more, according to Options Group. Investment bankers working on mergers and acquisitions made $350,000 to $500,000 at the vice-president level, with outliers pulling in at least $750,000. Managing directors make significantly more.

‘Flight Risk’

Banks won’t cut compensation for high performers who could depart for a competitor, said Jason Kennedy, CEO of London-based recruitment firm Kennedy Group.

“Managers are putting their reasons together why they need certain bonuses,” he said. “They will look after the guys who are a flight risk, and only then think about the others.”

Equities trading declined 6.6 percent at the five companies in the first nine months to $18.7 billion, led by a 12 percent drop at Goldman Sachs, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the average of estimates from analysts at Macquarie Group Ltd., Wells Fargo and KBW. Only Morgan Stanley was seen boosting equities-trading revenue, by almost 1 percent to $5.16 billion.

Trading Declines

Lower trading revenue led JPMorgan CFO Marianne Lake to cut the 2014 expense target by about $1 billion to $58 billion because of the impact on pay, she said at a Sept. 9 conference.

If “volatility increases and markets revenues go through the roof, God willing, we would be willing to pay for that” with higher incentive compensation, Lake said.

While volatility picked up at the end of the third quarter, banks would require a significant trading boost to save the year. If analysts are right about the third quarter, the five firms would need trading revenue to jump 27 percent in the fourth quarter to match last year’s total.

Wall Street’s rising investment-banking revenue, led by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, isn’t enough to offset the drop in trading revenue, a much bigger component of industry profits. Total banking and trading revenue probably dropped 3.3 percent to $78.2 billion in the first nine months, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Investment-banking revenue makes up about a quarter of the total.