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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dealer who wrote (22509)	12/6/2000 10:20:58 PM
From: Dealer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

HEY PORCHERS! I FOUND OUR MONEY!!!! Wall Street Bonuses May Set Record Wednesday December 6 4:35 PM ET By Joan Gralla NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's banks and brokerages this year will set a record high for employee bonuses, paying a total of $13.3 billion, New York State's top financial officer forecast Wednesday. The city's world-leading financial sector last year set a record, paying nearly $11.8 billion in bonuses, according to state comptroller H. Carl McCall, who made the new projections. Were New York City's 178,000 securities industry employees to all earn the same bonus, they would each get $74,000, he estimated. But Wall Street has a long tradition of paying its biggest guns -- mergers and acquisition chieftains or top-rated analysts who help bring in underwriting deals -- top dollars, much to the envy of Main Street. Though Wall Streeters can earn extraordinarily big paychecks, in return they take on the risk that during a down year their compensation will be slashed. Leading lights of the financial sector can earn bonuses ranging from $5 million to $15 million, although truly spectacular performers can collect even more. People in stock processing operations might collect 25 to 35 percent of their annual salaries in bonuses. Ace investment bankers might get bonuses that total more than 2.5 times their annual pay. The city and state comptrollers keep a close eye on Wall Street's performance because it can spur local and regional upturns or downturns as its often volatile earnings zig zag. Though the financial sector only accounts for about 5 percent of New York City's jobs, it represents 17 percent of its revenues. Comparable figures were not immediately available for the state, though it also relies heavily on the downstate banking and brokerage industry. Though the action on Wall Street has slowed from 1999 levels in the second half, total trading volume and new stock offerings have remained strong, as have mergers. ``Those profits, combined with a tight labor market and heated competition for talent, are responsible for the handsome bonuses we're seeing paid out,'' McCall said. During the first nine months of 2000, the total U.S. securities industry collected gross revenues of $185 billion with $18.3 billion in pretax profits, according to the Securities Industry Association. That already tops full-year 1999 results.