GASP!
ANALYST OWNS UP TO BAD TECH TIP
By JESSICA SOMMAR
June 20, 2001 -- Somebody check to see if Hell has frozen
over.
Jeffrey Camp, No. 1-ranked internet analyst for Morgan
Stanley Dean Witter admitted he was wrong and apologized
for touting a tech stock that plunged 94 percent in one year.
Camp, a veteran analyst, began a report discouraging
investors from buying Web site manager and former
high-flyer Exodus Communications by saying "it was time to
own up" to failures.
"If [the stock] is improving, surely we are downgrading the
shares at the bottom, but if it is deteriorating, better late than
never," Camp said.
The mea culpa by Camp, ranked as the top internet
infrastructure services analyst by Institutional Investors, was
first reported yesterday by Bloomberg.
Apologies are rare on Wall Street and even rarer from
research analysts, who are under scrutiny by Congress and
regulators.
Camp's report, "Waiting Too Long to Exhale," believes more
apologies by Wall Street will help analysts be trusted again.
"We [analysts] missed the worst tech downturn in 25 years,"
Camp said, "and it's time to stand up and take [our] lumps." |
