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

To: Dealer who wrote (54643)	8/22/2002 12:07:17 PM
From: Dealer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

HD--Merrill Lynch Fires Retail Analyst for Allegedly Tipping Clients to Pending Downgrade NEW YORK (AP) -- Three months after agreeing to pay a $100 million fine and revamp its stock analyst research practices, Merrill Lynch & Co. fired a top retail analyst for allegedly tipping off clients that he planned to reduce an earnings estimate. The nation's biggest brokerage fired Peter Caruso "because he violated the firm's policy regarding disclosure of an earnings estimate change and due to a loss of management confidence," Merrill Lynch said in a statement Thursday. Caruso downgraded Home Depot shares on July 12 to "neutral" from "strong buy" and reduced his 2002 earnings estimate for the Atlanta-based company. But Caruso suggested a day earlier to institutional investors that he might reduce the earnings estimate, said a source familiar with Caruso's firing who spoke on condition of anonymity. Caruso's lawyer, Julian Friedman, didn't immediately return a telephone message seeking comment. Merrill Lynch agreed to the fine and the analyst reforms after New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer revealed a 10-month investigation that uncovered e-mails from Merrill Lynch analysts disparaging stocks that they publicly praised.