Defining "Wall Street"

People tend to use the label "Wall Street" very loosely. Once upon a time — that is, in the Pre-Lehman Era — people would go to comical lengths to be included in the definition of "Wall Street." In the Post-Lehman Era, of course, "Wall Street" has become a pejorative in the media, and people in the financial industry are walking sideways away from the label. Unfortunately, commentators now simply use the term "Wall Street" to refer to any financial company they don't like, or that they're trying to paint in a negative light. If the SEC fines some random boutique brokerage in California, it's now evidence of "Wall Street corruption." All hedge funds are apparently part of Wall Street now too. Basically, if it's in the financial industry and it's being criticized, it's part of Wall Street.



Given all of this confusion, I thought it would be useful to clarify who exactly I'm talking about when I refer to "Wall Street." I'm not saying that this is the One-and-Only Definition of Wall Street; this is just my definition. Nonetheless, I do think it fairly represents the commonly-used definition within the financial industry.



In general, when I talk about "Wall Street," I'm referring to the major dealer banks (both domestic and foreign) and the two big custodian banks. Specifically, I'm referring to the following institutions:



1. Goldman Sachs

2. Morgan Stanley

3. JPMorgan

4. Deutsche Bank

5. Barclays

6. BofA-Merrill Lynch

7. UBS

8. Citigroup

9. Credit Suisse

10. SocGen

11. BNP Paribas

12. RBS

13. Wells Fargo/Wachovia Securities

14. Nomura

15. HSBC

16. BNY-Mellon

17. State Street



(It's possible that I forgot someone here — it's hard for an old guy like me to keep all the recent reshufflings straight.)



When you hear people in the industry say things like, "the Street is short 2YR swaps," they're generally talking about these institutions. They're not talking about hedge funds, or PIMCO, or boutique firms that have offices in lower Manhattan. It's really just a relatively small group of major dealer banks.



Anyway, I hope this clarifies things a bit.