Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns have set the bar high for the rest of Wall Street reporting large rises in their full year profits driven by the bond market boom.

Lehman Brothers recorded a 74% rise in annual profits while full-year profits at Bear Stearns surged 32% ahead of last year to $1.2bn (€960m). The results suggest validation of previous predictions that Wall Street profits should be sharply up in 2003 and mark the end of the industry recession.