Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, the major US banks most reliant on trading, had their earnings estimates reduced by analysts as a weak fourth quarter dimmed prospects for a capital-markets rebound in the first half of 2012.

Sanford C. Bernstein’s Brad Hintz cut his fourth-quarter estimate for Goldman Sachs by 76 percent and more than tripled his expected loss for Morgan Stanley as “already anxious clients grew increasingly cautious,” he wrote in a note to investors yesterday. Doug Sipkin, an analyst at Ticonderoga Securities LLC, lowered his 2012 Goldman Sachs estimate by 23 percent on a more pessimistic view of the firm’s fixed-income trading revenue.

The two New York-based banks will probably still more than double their earnings per share this year, according to analysts surveyed.