Bill:
These touchy analysts and their employers had better watch out. Individual investors may hire hit men. Now that the Mafia is making more off the market than through crime, there are probably some unemployed strong arms out there:
By Brian Kelleher
NEW YORK, July 14 (Reuters) - Wall Street analysts, who
long toiled in anonymity as bean-counters, now are icons of the
decade-long bull market and are receiving million-dollar
bonuses, heaps of TV time -- and death threats.
A Salomon Smith Barney analyst received a death threat
after he lowered his rating on semiconductor companies on July
5, CNN's Moneyline program reported on Thursday night.
The analyst who made the call on the sector, Jonathan
Joseph -- who was not specifically named by the TV station --
was not immediately available for comment and the investment
bank declined to comment. But a source within Salomon said
"people are really upset," by what happened, without being more
specific.
San Francisco-based Joseph is not the only one.
Dan Niles, an analyst at Lehman Brothers, said he has
received death threats after downgrading hot tech stocks such
as Dell Computer Corp. (NASDAQ:DELL) and Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ:RMBS) He
said the threats began last February and include an instance
where he was harassed at home.
"I've got an unlisted phone number now," he said.
All of this attention clearly indicates that, for better or
for worse, analysts have become the featured performers on the
increasingly visible U.S. stock market stage.
"(Analysts) appear on TV or on Web casts to talk to the
public, which obviously includes the individual investors,"
said Chuck Hill, director of research for First Call/Thomson
Financial, which tracks the estimates of analysts. "Before, an
analyst was more like a consultant to the institutional
business."
The reason behind the rise in analyst profiles is
technology, Hill said, as research reports are readily
available through outlets such as the Internet for anyone to
peruse.
Sometimes that technology puts the information in the wrong
hands, resulting in frightening scenarios.
Niles recalled one instance when an investor sent him an
e-mail after he downgraded Dell, claiming the move wiped out
his children's college fund money when the stock price fell.
The e-mailer threatened Niles with bodily harm if the
investor ever made it to the analyst's home town, San
Francisco, Niles said.
The threatening calls and messages are only after company
share prices dip, Niles noted, as people are desperate to find
a scapegoat for a poor investment decision.
"If you want to blame somebody, you might as well blame the
analyst," Niles said. "I've never gotten a threatening anything
when the stock is going up."
In some cases, it is an analyst's reputation -- rather than
his or her life -- that is put in jeopardy.
Investment firm Credit Suisse First Boston (ZSE:CSGZ.N) on
Wednesday filed a lawsuit against 11 people, alleging the group
posted bogus messages on a Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) message board.
The suit charges the individuals with slandering a Credit
Suisse analyst and illegally copying the analyst's research.
The suit does not charge Yahoo with any wrongdoing and does
not reveal the name of the analyst. A Credit Suisse spokesman
declined to comment on the situation.
The Yahoo finance message board, along with financial Web
site RagingBull.com, was the backdrop of another hoax last week
when U.S. Bancorp analyst Ashok Kumar was quoted falsely in a
bogus story alleging 24 stock brokers had been arrested for
securities fraud.
"It's bizarre," Kumar told Reuters on July 7. "This is
libel."
The game has changed, said First Call's Hill, himself a
former analyst. "I was a technology analyst for 20 years and
nobody ever heard of me," he said with a laugh.
Copyright 2000, Reuters News Service |
