Morgan Stanley provides investment banking products and services to its clients and customers including corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. It operates through the following business segments: Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management. The Institutional Services segment provides financial advisory, capital-raising services, and related financing services on behalf of institutional investors. The Wealth Management segment offers brokerage and investment advisory services covering various types of investments, including equities, options, futures, foreign currencies, precious metals, fixed-income securities, mutual funds, structured products, alternative investments, unit investment trusts, managed futures, separately managed accounts, and mutual fund asset allocation programs. The Investment Management segment provides equity, fixed income, alternative investments, real estate, and merchant banking strategies. The company was founded by Harold Stanley and Henry S. Morgan on September 16, 1935 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

Bank of America Corp. is a bank and financial holding company, which engages in the provision of banking and nonbank financial services. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Banking, Global Wealth and Investment Management, Global Banking, Global Markets, and All Other. The Consumer Banking segment offers credit, banking, and investment products and services to consumers and small businesses. The Global Wealth and Investment Management provides client experience through a network of financial advisors focused on to meet their needs through a full set of investment management, brokerage, banking, and retirement products. The Global Banking segment deals with lending-related products and services, integrated working capital management and treasury solutions to clients, and underwriting and advisory services. The Global Markets segment includes sales and trading services, as well as research, to institutional clients across fixed-income, credit, currency, commodity, and equity businesses. The All Other segment consists of asset and liability management activities, equity investments, non-core mortgage loans and servicing activities, the net impact of periodic revisions to the mortgage servicing rights (MSR) valuation model for both core and non-core MSRs, other liquidating businesses, residual expense allocations and other. The company was founded by Amadeo Peter Giannini in 1904 is headquartered in Charlotte, NC.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational banking and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in the United States by assets, and as of 2012, it ranks as the second largest bank in the world by assets with total assets of $2.509 trillion. It is a major provider of financial services, and according to Forbes magazine is the world's second largest public company based on a composite ranking. The hedge fund unit of JPMorgan Chase is one of the largest hedge funds in the United States. It was formed in 2000, when Chase Manhattan Corporation merged with J.P. Morgan & Co