Citigroup’s equities trading segment was boosted by an improvement in derivatives in the first quarter this year, with revenues up 10% compared to the year prior.
The markets business saw an overall increase of 18% to $4.8 billion with growth across both fixed income and equities trading in the first quarter of 2017.
Equities market revenues of $769 million were led by improved activity across derivatives as fixed income surged 19% to $3.6 billion.
The increase in fixed income was driven by rates and currencies as well as spread products, Citi said.
The announcement comes on the same day as JP Morgan revealed similar growth in fixed income revenues in the first quarter this year, compared to the same period last year.
JP Morgan’s fixed income sales increased 17% to $4.2 billion in the first quarter this year, driven by a good performance across securitised products, rates and credit, as well as strong demand and spread tightening.
Michael Corbat, CEO at Citi, commented: “The momentum we saw across many of our businesses towards the end of last year carried into the first quarter, resulting in significantly better overall performance than a year ago.”
Citi’s overall group revenues grew 3% in the first quarter this year, driven by increases across its institutional client group and global consumer banking businesses.