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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IceShark who wrote (16985)	9/9/2000 12:50:30 PM
From: CYC	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Typhoon #15 is supposed to move across Taiwan in a few hours. Doesn't look like this is a biggie. When I was a kid, me and friends often wished for typhoons to pick up power so that schools would be shut down and we could play in the rain. Ahh.., those naive and happy days. The gang on this thread needs to get a real life. -bg- I mean, how am I supposed to read hundreds of messages every day, especially when I am not in the office where I have nothing to do but clicking on SI posts? -g-

To: IceShark who wrote (16985)	9/9/2000 12:55:55 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 436258

Hey, all you JP Morgan (JT Marlin?) fans...check THIS out!! thestreet.com The best possible scenario for Morgan is that Hancock is leaving for personal reasons that have nothing to do with the bank's operations. The worst possible scenario is that Hancock has screwed up hugely in his role as finance chief. Being CFO of Morgan is a daunting job, with its enormous trading operations and active presence in many high-risk emerging markets. Hancock was also head of the bank's all-important risk management committee, overseeing the bank's continuing push to reduce its risk levels. The need for this effort was made evident last year when the bank lost $123 million gambling with its own money, an activity called proprietary trading. Most sell-side analysts believe that Morgan's risk-reduction strategy is going just fine, and were rapturous when the bank's second-quarter earnings came in well above their expectations. But a closer look at those numbers showed, rather depressingly, just how dependent Morgan still is on trading, as opposed to investment banking fees or asset management income. In fact, a stunning 53% of the bank's $819 million in second-quarter pretax earnings came from trading and trading-related activities in bonds, equities and derivatives, which are complex financial instruments. Around 28%, or $230 million, came from bad old proprietary trading. What's more, well over half of that $230 million came from what the bank mysteriously labeled "other" trading revenue. The bank's public filings say only that the quarter's trading profits were partly attributable to so-called market neutral strategies. That sounds kind of reassuring until you remember that the "market neutral" approach was favored by Long-Term Capital Management, the gigantic hedge fund that crashed in 1998 and nearly brought down the whole financial system -- literally. When a bank like Morgan is this reliant on proprietary trading, and fails to give a clearer idea of what strategies are working so well, investors shouldn't be surprised if one quarter's big gain swings to a big loss in the next. Perhaps Hancock smells a melt?<NG>