[ by Melanie Gretchen ] Wall Street layoffs are on the horizon, starting next month throughout the industry. Equity traders and deal-makers are likely to incur serious cuts.  Equity-related revenues fell by 14% at JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and other big banks.  Meanwhile, deal-makers have been plagued by steep drops in corporate merger activity for 2012, according to a report from London analytics firm, Coalition. And Coalition does not see the industry prognosis improving anytime soon.  One bright spot is fixed income trading, a sharp contrast to the collective 8% drop in overall revenue at the 10 global banks tracked by Coalition: BofA, ML, BCS, Citi, CS, DB, GS, JPM, MS, RBS, UBS.

If the top Wall Street banks cut their staffs based on the rate of falling revenue, it's anticipated that there would be a loss of about 13,000 jobs.

Any hope that the 2nd half of 2012 will be anything like the 1st half of the year - when there was an increase of 2,500 jobs, or 0.5% of the workforce - alas, is a remote possibility.  It's expected that year-end bonuses and executive payouts will shape the bottom line - not to mention the firing line.