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Article: Sound and fury; Investment banking.(Signifying nothing for Wall Street)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- November 29, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Signifying nothing: despite all the scandals of the past year, investment banks are making record profits
THE good folk at Morgan Stanley are a little chastened. Having trumpeted how clean it was earlier this year when Eliot Spitzer, New York state's energetic attorney-general, forced Wall Street to cough up $1.4 billion for issuing biased research, the starchiest investment bank of the lot must now pay $50m for mis-selling mutual funds. Even banks with the least tarnished reputations seem riddled with conflicts of interest, perverse incentives and greed.
Small wonder that they have bleated as regulators have shone a spotlight into their murkiest ...