Morgan Stanley joins Goldman Sachs in helping quell bank panic

Posted Mar 19th 2008 9:16AM by Zack Miller
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Lehman Br Holdings (LEH), Bear Stearns Cos (BSC)

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) reported earnings this morning that while dropped significantly, still beat Wall Streett's expectations. Citing strong equity sales and trading profits, the large investment bank impressed analysts with better-than-expected performance. Net revenues dropped 17% but things weren't quite as bad as analysts were forecasting.

In spite of fourth quarter results deemed "embarassing" by CEO John Mack, MS joins the ranks of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH), two investment banks whose relatively benign performance in the face of very strong headwinds, has helped allay some concerns about a liquidity traffic jam for financial firms.

Bloomberg ran a story on Morgan's performance here. The same story quoted an asset manager as saying "Any business that Bear Stearns had probably has gone to someone else." At least that's some good news for the walking wounded.

Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.

Tags: bear stearns, BearStearns, bsc, goldman sachs, GoldmanSachs, gs, inthenews, investment banks, InvestmentBanks, leh, lehman brothers, LehmanBrothers, morgan, ms