Wall Street not what it was

I hadn't read of this before (thanks, ABC):  Wall Street is not what it was, with investment banks moving out into other parts of New York and their former building converted into apartments:

When you walk down Wall Street today, it's all condos", says Brian Barnier, director at ValueBridge Advisors.

"JP Morgan's office building — that's condos.

"Somebody's got a bathroom where JP Morgan's [John Pierpont "Jack" Morgan] office was."

Wall Street real estate agent Julia Hoagland is selling rentals on the strip.

"Wall Street and the financial district have changed dramatically in the nearly two decades since September 11," she says.

"A healthy housing market and tax incentives motivated developers to convert commercial buildings to the more valuable residential product."

The former AIG tower across the street from the NYSE and JP Morgan was made into rental apartments.

The owners of 60 Wall Street, which housed Deutsche Bank, have reportedly commissioned CBRE to market the tower's 1.7 million square feet of office space to apartment developers.

It also discusses changes in the whole investment banking line of business:

Mr Barnier, who has first-hand experience working in investment banking as an independent consultant, says the industry has traditionally leaned on three main sources of revenue.

Buying and selling companies, which was a major theme of the movie Wall Street, is one source of revenue. Much of this business has dried up.

Another huge revenue stream for investment banks has been their corporate advisory services.

"And they're now getting more competition from the consultancy firms." Think the big four accounting firms: EY, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Deloitte.

"They're shedding traders right and left, going more to algorithmic models [where computer-driven mathematical models buy and sell shares based on stocks meeting certain criteria]."

"Each one of those business lines is under a lot of pressure."