Lehman Brothers surprised Wall Street with record profits, beating estimates by 33 cents per share. As the largest brokerage firms gear up to report their quarterly financial results, is Lehman’s act too tough to follow? Jeffery Harte, managing director of equity research at Sandler O’Neill, joined CNBC’s Sue Herera on “Power Lunch” with an earnings outlook.

“Lehman had record investment banking revenues. That in of itself is good, but they also said their pipelines increased,” said Harte, adding, “the best is yet to come.” He believes the factors that helped Lehman Brothers should also help Goldman Sachs, which reports earnings Thursday.

Harte said that for such companies, “international is really what’s driving revenue growth, specifically on the equities front.” He said, “That should be good news for Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, and also for Morgan Stanley.”

However, Harte noted, “The U.S. mortgage securities market remains pretty tough. While that is not good news for any of the brokers, it is probably disproportionately bad new for Bear Stearns.”

Harte believes that Lehman could be the leader this quarter -- and thinks it set a particularly high bar for Bear Stearns to follow when it, too, reports tomorrow.