Major Wall Street banks today reported record revenues for Q1.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both reported record earning for Q1, and with earnings for these combined with Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, it brings income for all four Wall Street banks to $4.23bn, up 19% on last year.

Investment banking remains especially profitable, with strong growth on bonds, currencies, equities and commodities. However, there were reports of strong performance across the banking sectors, with debt management and consultancy also proving to be good earners.

Overall, the level of success has not been seen since the dotcom boom years, although the highly profitable merger and acquisition advice has notreturned to pre-bust levels.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported that growth in the US industrial production sector was slowing, but remains strong overall.

On it's index it reported a slight fall to 55.3 from 56.4 in January, with growth still strong in 13 of 20 monitored areas.

Although the markets had expected a higher index figure, overall growth remains strong, and prior issues such as material availabiliy and price competitiveness were becoming less of a problem than before.