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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Anthony@Pacific who wrote (65461)	1/2/2001 2:57:47 PM
From: steve h	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 122087

Anthony, Are you covering rimm yet? Steve h

To: Anthony@Pacific who wrote (65461)	1/2/2001 3:18:03 PM
From: If only I'd held	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 122087

well, a 3 week update. EBAY is down approximately 20% or 8 points from your 37, and SHRP is back to flat from my entry of 16.

To: Anthony@Pacific who wrote (65461)	1/2/2001 4:10:41 PM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 122087

Bear Stearns Loses Bid to Reverse $171 Million Award New York, Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Bear Stearns Cos. lost a bid today to reverse a $171 million jury award to currency speculator Henryk de Kwiatkowski. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero refused Bear Stearns' ``extraordinary'' request to overturn the award. Jurors in May concluded that Bear Stearns failed to adequately warn the Canadian investor of the risks of foreign currency speculation and ordered the sixth largest U.S. securities firm to pay $111.5 million in damages. Marrero later tacked on another $60 million in interest. Late in 1994, de Kwiatkowski purchased foreign currency contracts worth approximately $6.5 billion and lost an estimated $215 million a few months later. ``The recovery here is unusually big only because the amounts (de) Kwiatkowski placed at risk were correspondingly large,'' Marrero wrote in a 126-page opinion. ``But the culpable conduct which gave rise to Bear Stearns' liability would have been no less wrongful whether the amount in controversy implicated hundreds of dollars or hundreds of millions.'' A Bear Stearns spokesman said the ruling was not a surprise and that the firm would ask a federal appeals court to overturn it. De Kwiatkowski claimed that Bear Stearns investment advisers, including managing director Albert Sabini, were negligent for allowing him to buy $6.5 billion worth of foreign currency futures. Bear Stearns argued that de Kwiatkowski, who is in his mid- 70s, was a gambler who was well aware of the risks of currency speculation. The jury exonerated Sabini. Special Relationship In asking Marrero to overturn the verdict, Bear Stearns argued that the jury's ruling, if allowed to stand, would saddle securities firms with the obligation to warn clients of all potential risks from investing. Bear Stearns said such a burden would deter brokers from offering services beyond the execution of trades, because firms would otherwise risk ``ruinous'' liability. Marrero said the claim ``raises weighty considerations.'' But he concluded that Bear Stearns had a ``special'' relationship with the ``exceptionally wealthy'' de Kwiatkowski and that the firm had ``responsibilities that far exceeded those associated with a common broker/client relationship.'' Bear Stearns routinely provided advice about the timing, size, and placement of de Kwiatkowski's accounts, the judge said. ``Bear Stearns played a substantial role first in enabling (de) Kwiatkowski to place himself in a situation of significant financial danger, and subsequently in endeavors to assist him (to) extricate himself from the risk,'' Marrero said. `Erroneous and Inconsistent' A Bear Stearns spokesman said, ``We strongly believe the decision is erroneous and inconsistent with the law regarding brokerage firm-customer relationships.'' De Kwiatkowski's attorney, Myron Kirschbaum, said brokers have routinely been held responsible for their actions when they provide clients with more than the most basic of services. ``When brokers have undertaken additional duties, the courts have not hesitated in holding them to a standard of due care,'' he said. ``They're being treated as any professional would be.'' De Kwiatkowski, who now lives in Nassau, Bahamas, made his fortune in the aircraft-leasing business after fleeing Nazi- occupied Poland at the outset of World War II. He was later captured by the Russians and spent years in a prison camp before escaping to England where he served in the Royal Air Force. Interest on the judgment will continue to mount as the appeal goes forward, Kirschbaum said. Jan/02/2001 13:42 ET For more stories from Bloomberg News, click here. (C) Copyright 2000 Bloomberg L.P.