Ever-shrinking equities teams have just racked up their best year in a decade.
While traders know the glory days are well and truly over, almost $3 trillion worth of Australian shares changed hands in 2016 in what was the biggest year since $3.3 trillion was recorded in 2007.
The big numbers offer some respite - and hope - for equities teams, which have been hit hard by volume and commission cuts since the credit crisis, and will have equities bosses arguing hard for headcount numbers in the post-bonus season reviews.
While the value of shares traded was up across the market, there were winners and losers among the major players.
UBS was a clear winner in terms of market share, with 14.2 per cent of the shares traded by value to again underscore its position as the country's biggest broker.
Second-placed Deutsche Bank lost some ground to its arch rival to finish with 9.5 per cent of the trade, after losing a big high frequency trading account, while third-placed Morgan Stanley finished strongly to capture more domestic long-only wallet share and ended with 8.9 per cent.
Other winners included Bank of America Merrill Lynch which climbed into fifth spot, while Credit Suisse, JPMorgan and CLSA also gained ground.
Macquarie's institutional desk and Goldman Sachs were unchanged with about 7.5 per cent and 4.5 per cent of the trade, respectively, last year.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia was a clear loser after pulling out of the institutional market, while Citi and Deutsche also dropped a couple of points in terms of market share.
UBS was also the busiest broker in terms of the number of trades, ahead of Deutsche, BAML, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley.
As always, each broker has a different view on how relevant market share is in a world of direct access and high frequency trading.
While profitability would be a better measure, determining profitability is much harder given the often complex way the offshore banks go about reporting profit numbers.
In terms of exchanges, Chi-X is running at about 20 per cent of equities market share according to Credit Suisse estimates, which is consistent with its position over the past year.
