Morgan Stanley's fourth-quarter profits jumped 46% from a year earlier, the company said on Thursday, helped by a massive boost from the bank's trading desks.

The investment bank said it earned a profit of $2.24 billion US, or $1.30 per share, compared with a profit of $1.53 billion, or 80 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier.

The results easily beat analysts' forecasts of 98 cents per share.

READ MORE: Quiz disappoints City as Christmas sales fall

The financial markets during the last three months of 2019 were good for banks, and Morgan Stanley's results were no exception.

The bank brought in 2.31 billion dollars in trading revenues, a 33% jump from last year.

Investment banking revenues were also 14% higher in the quarter.

Morgan Stanley is the smallest and last of the big six Wall Street banks to report this week, and its results are similar to what its bigger rivals JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup reported.

All saw big boosts from trading in the quarter, but had issues with lower interest rates.

Since Morgan Stanley has an incredibly small consumer banking franchise, mostly just lending to rich customers using stocks and bonds as collateral, the bank is not as susceptible to interest rate fluctuations as its competitors.

The bank's return on equity, which is a measurement of bank profitability by measuring how well they perform with the assets they hold, was 13% in the fourth quarter compared with 8.8% in 2018.

Banks like Morgan Stanley aim to have their return on equity above 10%.

For the full year, the bank earned a profit of $9.04 billion US on revenues of $41.42 billion US, up from a profit of $8.75 billion US on revenues of $40.11 billion US in 2018.

Strikes in France, political uncertainty in the UK, a slowing German economy and the Australian bushfires all took their toll on recruiter Hays, as the company issued a profit warning.

The firm said it expects to see profits in the first half of the year fall to around £100 million, compared with £124 million last year.

READ MORE: Perthshire gold prospects in focus

Chief executive Alistair Cox said: "Growth slowed markedly in December, driven by specific events in key markets: general strikes in France, tragic Australian bushfires and the UK election.

"Each event impacted markets already facing challenging economic conditions and low business confidence."

Around 45% of all fees made by Hays come through those three countries.

He added: "Overall, we expect near-term macro conditions to remain difficult, but see continued opportunities for growth in key specialisms like IT."

Shares in the group fell 3%, down 5.5p to 167.1p by lunchtime on Thursday.

Digitalbox, owner of The Daily Mash satirical website, has seen its shares surge after its digital media business surpassed profit and revenue expectations.

The company saw growth led by entertainment news website Entertainment Daily, where user numbers grew to a monthly peak of six million unique users in December.

READ MORE: Cairn Energy approves plan to develop bumper oil field

The group started 2019 as listed shell company Polemos before purchasing Digitalbox Publishing Holdings for £10 million in February and Mashed Productions for £1.2 million a month later.

It said The Daily Mash saw audience levels for the second half of 2019 increase 15% against the same period in 2018, while another series of The Mash Report was broadcast on the BBC.

Shares were up 20.7% to 8p.