The investment banking analysts at financial services analytics company Coalition have published global and regional league tables rating the top 12 IBs - globally and regionally - for the year to December 2016. Topping the charts - both globally and in all three of the regions that Coalition covers (the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific) was JP Morgan, which earned an estimated US$25.2 billion in 2016. This was a notable increase from US$22.7 billion earnings in 2015, thanks in part to improved ranking in equities and commodities trading, at the expense of Goldman Sachs.Even looking to the Asia-Pacific region, no Australian banks made the Top 12 lists anywhere, while US firms dominated the top five or six rankings everywhere.While overall changes in rankings have been minimal, the APAC region has proved to be a battleground for most global banks. The top five in 2015 were Deutsche (with APAC earnings of US$3.3 billion), Citi, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Morgan Stanley. Twelve months later, the top ranking went to JP Morgan, followed by Citi, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche and Nomura.George Kuznetsov, head of research at Coalition, told the Financial Times that his firm had seen "certain selective buildouts" of teams, with banks "trying to upgrade personnel". "We've seen a slight increase of capabilities, mainly in fixed income, G7 rates, but nothing drastic," Kuznetsov said.The outlook for 2017 will be "a bit more mellow as we go through the year" with an overall increase in revenues in the single-digit percentages. "Credit-linked products will do quite well but not perhaps as well as some people are anticipating. Everyone else is struggling slightly more."Investment bank revenues fell 3 per cent in 2016, FT.com reported.The Coalition analyses were made at the investment bank level, taking into account each bank's operations in FICC (fixed income instruments, currencies, and commodities), equities trading and its investment banking division (that is, advisory services on transactions, mergers and acquisitions and corporate financing).FT.com, citing Thomson Reuters, also provided an insight into fees at the top ten IBs in FY 2016, which showed fee earnings for the year were well down on 2015 earnings (minus 7.42 per cent), with DB plummeting by 21 per cent.JP Morgan (earnings were US$5.728 billion, down 4.93 per cent in fees v 2015); Goldman Sachs & Co (US$5.04 billion; down 5.09 per cent); Bank of America Merrill Lynch (US$4.498 billion, down 18.38 per cent); Morgan Stanley (US$4.454 billion, down 13.65 per cent) and Citi (US$3.843, with 8.78 per cent reduction in fees).