[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

Morgan Stanley, Susanne Craig has changed her mind.  Just this morning, the New York Times's Dealbook writer published titled, "Morgan Stanley Swings to a Profit, Beating Estimates," featuring winning terms like "solid results" and verbs like "exceeded" and "topped.  Apparently, 6 hours makes all the difference.

This afternoon, "investors appear unimpressed" – in the title, no less – and Ms. Craig observed some "rattling" in conjunction to the institutional securities division.  Perhaps Roger Freeman, an analyst with Barclays, called it best when he said the results were "a mixed bag."

Here's what both of Ms. Craig's stories share:

The big picture:

• Morgan Stanley's Q1 adjusted earnings exceeded analyst estimates on Thursday
• Including charges, firm profit totaled $1 billion, or 50¢ a share – an improvement from a loss of $79 million in the period a year earlier
• Excluding those charges, firm profit totaled $1.2 billion, or 61¢ a share, a decline from the $1.4 billion reported in the first quarter of 2012, but exceeding estimates of 57¢ a share among analysts polled by Thomson Reuters
• Adjusted revenue for the 3 months ending 3/31 fell to $8.5 billion from $8.9 billion in the period a year earlier, greater than the estimated revenue of $8.35 billion
   

The individual units:

• The wealth management unit reported (i) pretax income from continuing operations of $597 million (up 48% from the $403 million reported in the first quarter of last year) and (ii) net revenue in wealth management increased to $3.5 billion from $3.3 billion in the first quarter of 2012
• The asset management united posted revenue of $645 million in Q1, 21% higher than in the period a year earlier
• Institutional securities net revenue was $4.4 billion, down from $5.1 billion a year earlier
• Investment banking revenue rose 15% to $1.2 billion

Both takes of the story, by the way, are correct, insofar as the bank exceeded and fell short of prior results and expectations.  Perhaps, then, Ms. Craig's praise was tempered by the 4.5% drop in shares of Morgan Stanley during afternoon trading so significant;  just 6 hours prior, the firm's stock opened more than 2% to $20.98 in early trading.  Perhaps such is the market and such is the media.

For further details, go to [Dealbook, 4/18/13].