Friday, June 13, 2008
The Conflict of Interest Game
Disgruntled investors are going after Wall Street once again, this clip accusing one of investing bank Morgan-Stanley's high-tech common finances of making biased stock picks.
Recent lawsuits allege the Morgan Stanley Technology monetary monetary monetary fund was influenced to purchase and throw pillory of companies that delivered huge investing banking fees - or could potentially convey large business - to the investing bank.
According to the lawsuits, the Morgan Stanley fund followed the biased recommendations of the firm's analysts - determinations that have got cost shareholders billions of dollars since the portfolio's October 2000 inception.
The fund lost 48 percent in 2001 and was down another 50 percent during the first nine calendar months of 2002. While Morgan Stanley strongly denied the allegations, I neglect to see how the management of the monetary fund is somehow distinct from the other divisions of Morgan Stanley. Ultimately, they all work for the same boss.
The lawsuits additional claim that the technical school monetary fund failed to let on that the firm had investing banking neckties with a number of companies whose pillory were portion of the portfolio. They also failed to uncover that those golf course could impact the fund's bargain or sell calls.
Why convey all this up? For one thing, it is interesting to observe that Morgan Stanley offered four of these types of finances in October 2000. Just around the clip when we sold all of our places (Oct. 13, 2000) and it became clear, at least to those of us who were tracking long-term trends, that a major tendency change had taken place.
More recently in the intelligence it's been Merrill Lynch who had a questionable deal involving transactions with failing energy bargainer Enron. Of course, the financial services industry modulates itself so well, that an $80 million payment to the second is sufficient to wrap up up this lawsuit without admitting or denying wrongdoing.
What's the moral of this story? While it is impossible to foretell these alleged struggle of interest schemes, it is definitely possible to follow a under control attack and be on the right side of the market so you can avoid jumping aboard a sinking ship.
