Now is the time of year when a Wall Streeter's fancy turns, not so lightly, to thoughts of bonuses. In financial circles, the question on everyone's mind is this: Just how big will this payday be? The answer, it seems, is extremely big -- perhaps the biggest industrywide since 2007, at the height of the bubble, according to a study released on Wednesday by the pay consultant Johnson Associates. The annual report, a closely watched signpost for the bonus season, projected that the financial industry payouts would be up 40 percent from 2008, when they plunged in the midst of the financial crisis. In 2008, Wall Street handed out nearly $20 billion in cash awards and billions more in stock and other incentives to employees based in New York. For people who trade bonds, commodities and currencies, bonuses are expected to soar as much as 60 percent, to around their pre-crisis levels. A typical senior fixed-income trader can expect a total pay package of about $930,000 in cash and stock, compared with a package last year of about $695,000. Paychecks for stock and derivatives traders are likely to jump by half that much. Whatever the actual numbers, the bonuses are bound to be controversial. Big banks are grappling with changes to their bonus systems, which regulators claim may have encouraged employees to take excessive risks. Many banks are planning to increase the percentage of bonuses paid in the form of stock or options. 'It's going to be a political and optical problem for the banks,' said Michael S. Melbinger, an executive compensation lawyer at Winston & Strawn. But this will be an unusually lopsided year for bonuses. While traders are looking forward to fat bonuses, payouts for people working in asset management, corporate and retail banking and the insurance businesses are expected to be flat or even down, according to the study. Given the decline in the once-booming mergers and acquisition business, bonuses for certain dealmakers could fall 10 to 15 percent. And the once-gilded paychecks of hedge fund managers are expected to decline 15 to 25 percent. Private equity executives will be among the hardest hit, with their year-end bonuses falling 20 to 25 percent as they struggle to sell many of their investments. 'This is a year of two different worlds,' said Alan Johnson, of Johnson Associates. 'It's not a broad-based recovery.' 