I told him I knew nothing about them (and I didn't at the time). Then the news started breaking on them and, obviously, it wasn't good.
Not knowing anything about them, I stressed to my friend that he must ask the broker about principal protection.
The broker was referred to my friend via his brother, and is with one of the big outfits.
Anyway, my friend put his order in for the auction rates, but he got lucky. The broker's firm put a cease and desist order in on sales of that product, and my friend's funds were plopped into a plain vanilla MM.
Wall Street, it seems, finds endless ways to package products.
That reminds me of a conversation I had with a Morgan Stanley broker. We were discussing naked shorting and the new tightened rules. He likes the new initiatives, but felt that, yes, WS usually finds creative ways to work around them.
I don't agree with pcyhuang much, but I do on naked shorting. Why are the rules different for a Citigroup than a PNC or Regions Financial, for instance? Shouldn't all stocks be treated equally, not discriminating as to either equity or sector? You want to short a stock, locate the shares, then borrow them, before selling them in the open market. |
