The unwinding of the Lehman Bros. failure was complicated and drama-filled enough without the bankruptcy judge in the case -- 63-year old James M. Peck -- upping the ante.

The New York Times reports that he was arrested and charged with third-degree attempted assault and second-degree harassment on Sunday afternoon. He is accused of slapping his wife, Judith, in the face and causing bruising.

Peck reportedly told police that he and wife began arguing after she arrived home late from the Hamptons and both hit each other. By the time police arrived, they were in separate rooms.

The lead attorney representing Lehman Bros. in the bankruptcy process is now making the case the former CEO Richard Fuld is not at all responsible for the collapse of the company he was leading.

In response to a motion by Thomas DiNapoli, New York State Comptroller, to have a trustee appointed to oversee Lehman's unwinding, Harvey Miller wrote that DiNapoli "blithely ignores that under the long term leadership of Mr. Fuld, Lehman had become one of the premier independent investment banking concerns in the world and had steadily provided significant returns to its investors, employees and shareholders."

The Lehman Brothers opened for business in 1850, even before the civil war (1861–65). Now, after 158 years, the illustrious financial powerhouse is gone and the founders must be turning in their graves.

You could be sure that the careful and methodical practices of the founders were lost by its current management team that strayed from sound business practices when they indulged in risky lending adventures and extremely high leverage.

From the company's web site:

The history of Lehman Brothers parallels the growth of the United States and its energetic drive toward prosperity and international prominence. What would evolve into a global financial entity began as a general store in the American South. Henry Lehman, an immigrant from Germany, opened his small shop in the city of Montgomery, Alabama in 1844. Six years later, he was joined by brothers Emanuel and Mayer, and they named the business Lehman Brothers.

Cotton was the cash crop of the time, and the Lehmans accepted it from the local farmers as currency to settle accounts. The brothers traded the cotton for cash or merchandise, becoming brokers for buyers and sellers of the crop. In 1858, they opened an office in New York, which was the commodity trading center of the country.

Ted Allrich is the founder of The Online Investor and author of the just released book: Comfort Zone Investing: Build Wealth And Sleep Well At Night. In this weekly column, he'll offer advice to investors who are just getting started.

What really happened to these venerable names of Wall Street? They were once so powerful, so unbelievably powerful. How could they fail? Simple: everyone got greedy.

Gordon Gecko wasn't right. Greed isn't good. It's the one element of investing that will take you down, doesn't matter who or what you are. When greed enters the room, rational decisions go out the window. Greed doesn't color your vision. It blinds. And it blinded the management of these companies.

Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) earnings potential due to its denosumab is expected to rise substantially.
• Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS) beat low Q2 expectations but forecast a loss in Q3.
• BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. (NYSE: BJ) beat Q2 profit estimates and announced share buybacks.
• BWAY Holding Co. (NYSE: BWY) topped Q3 expectations on cost containment and increased productivity.
• Fuqi International Inc. (NASDAQ: FUQI) beat Q2 expectations and offered Q3 and full-year guidance.
• Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) reported higher Q2 earnings but lower sales, dragged down by Old Navy.
• Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) reported strong Q3 earnings results due to its global reach.
• Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) Q2 results fell more than expected, but it reaffirmed its earnings forecast.
• Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH) may post preliminary results (another loss) before Sept.
• Lowe's Cos. Inc. (NYSE: LOW) posted better-than-expected Q2 profits but offered a cautious sales forecast.
• Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. (NASDAQ: PSUN) weak guidance lead to analyst downgrades.
• Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) posted strong Q2 results and announced an aquisition.
• VeriFone Holdings Inc. (NYSE: PAY) offered a positive outlook, which sent shares soaring.

For more highlights from this week, see: Hershey, Heinz, Burger King, Foot Locker, Saks and others

Upcoming quarterly reports include Big Lots (NYSE: BIG), Borders (NYSE: BGP), Rio Tinto (NYSE: RTP), Tivo (NASDAQ: TIVO), Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL), Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD), and Tiffany (NYSE: TIF).

Visit AOL Money & Finance for more earnings coverage.

Six months of 2008 are now behind us and the stock market has not been a friendly place to most investors. Stability that was once found in household names that were industry giants is gone, and they have now been brought to their knees.

Many of them were the stocks we might have looked to in the past for stability, so you can be sure I put forward my five candidates with a little trepidation, but forward I go anyway. First a little review is in order.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) dropped from around $53 per share last year to around $30 in January and we can buy it today for around $17. Even at that price Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) has downgraded it to a sell and thinks there is more bad news to come. Citigroup was the largest bank in the world. Not any more.

General Motors (NYSE: GM) was the largest car maker in the world. That was before the stock tumbled from $43 to its current $11 range. A crushing blow to long time investors hoping that someone in the company could stop the ship from sinking.

Lehman Brothers Holdings (NYSE: LEH) has approached a Korean sovereign wealth fund (SWF) about investing. But Lehman probably won't get the money it seeks. Reuters reports that Korean Investment Corp (KIC), an SWF that manages about $20 billion and is an investor in Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER), is unlikely to invest in Lehman.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that investors on the Einhorn side of Lehman -- those hoping its stock will drop -- are increasing their wager. It notes that options traders increased their bearish positions to a two-month high yesterday. With one analyst expecting Lehman to report a second-quarter loss of 50 cents a share during the week of June 16, put option volume rose to 283,676 contracts, or quadruple the 20-day average, and bearish bets on the company exceeded bullish ones by 1.6-to-1.

As I mentioned during my talk at Stanford in April, SWFs have been burned by their investments in the U.S. finance industry. One of them, the Citic Group, was lucky it was able to bail out of its commitment to invest $1 billion in Bear Stearns. But that close call is likely to keep other SWFs from throwing good money after bad.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The Wall Street Journal reported that a federal judge said that the government had "sufficient evidence" for a jury to conclude that a conspiracy to fraudulently boost the financials of American International Group Inc (NYSE: AIG) began with former CEO Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg. That led to a transaction that artificially inflated AIG's loss reserves.
• Citigroup Incorporated's (NYSE: C) Falcon Strategies fixed income hedge fund is down 75%, the Wall Street Journal reported, bad news for the three U.S. banks that invested in it to help increase returns on employee life insurance. One of the banks, Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB), is suing Transamerica Life and Smith Barney, both of whom helped to arrange the investment, and some are now questioning whether Citigroup will be forced to give back some of the investments as they have with individual investors.
• After it stopped offering some mortgages last month because it was swamped by volumes of new applications, the Financial Times reported that First Direct, a unit of HSBC Holdings Plc (NYSE: HBC), has resumed lending to new customers. The bank said it has continued to receive "significant interest" in its mortgages from existing customers.

OTHER PAPERS:

• In an effort to raise capital from shareholders, the Telegraph reported that Barclays Plc (NYSE: BCS) is considering a takeover bid for a rival in the U.S. or UK. Sources believe Barclays may attempt to acquire an investment bank, a struggling bank or a deal in a fast-moving economy. Potential names mentioned include UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (NYSE: LEH).

According to analyst Felicia Hendrix, who works at Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH), Hasbro Inc. (NYSE: HAS), a toy company that competes with Mattel Inc. (NYSE: MAT), might do better than she previously expected. She originally was counting on a 2.5% drop in top-line sales for all of 2008, but she now believes that the business may beat such a dire call. Further, she thinks Hasbro can do $1.93 per share in 2008; previously, she was only willing to credit the company with $1.88 per share for the year. I like it; and in case you were wondering what 2009 might bring, she's thinking $2.10 per share is completely conceivable.

Ah, Hasbro, Hasbro -- I've been watching you, and I've thought about you, but I never pulled the trigger. I should have; I remember counseling myself when the stock was trading near its 52-week low that I maybe should take a chance on it. I was thinking about how the company had some cool catalysts coming up -- Marvel Entertainment's (NYSE: MVL) films Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk might be big blockbusters this summer, so Hasbro could end up selling a lot of product based on the properties. And then there's the upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars project -- come on, the figures and sets based on this one should do very well since Hasbro is an ace marketer of Star Wars merch. I should have been on the ball, I guess.

If Hasbro does around $2 in earnings in 2009, that gives the toy vendor a forward P/E of about 15 right now. That's attractive, especially considering Hasbro's current dividend yield. Hasbro looked more exciting to me about ten points ago, but I think it is nevertheless an interesting investment idea at the moment. I'll want to watch for any significant pullbacks in the share price that might make Hasbro even more interesting.

Disclosure: I own shares of Marvel; positions can change at any time.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• If Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO) accepts a buyout offer from Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), it will have to be at the software maker's original offer of $44.6B. Microsoft won't raise the price, the Wall Street Journal reported, and the state of the economy might work in their favor.
• The FAA said that landing gear made by Illinois-based AAR Corporation (NYSE: AIR), and used on hundreds of Boeing Company (NYSE: BA)-built aircraft, includes "unapproved" parts, the Wall Street Journal also reported.
• Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (NYSE: LEH) is thinking of not allowing its two British subprime mortgage units to provide any new loans. The Financial Times reported that the company may also order the units to put additional pressure on borrowers with a spotty credit history whose mortgages are coming to the end of fixed-rate terms.

OTHER PAPERS:

• According to the Detroit News, people familiar with the matter said that the strike at American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc (NYSE: AXL) could threaten production of General Motors Corporation's (NYSE: GM) Chevrolet Malibu sedan.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (NYSE: LEH) reported a 27% increase in 2Q profits, generally good results. However, the deteriorating subprime business and drop in bond prices and higher interest rates are beginning to show up in results.

"This is the beauty of having a diversified business mode," Lehman Chief Financial Officer Chris O'Meara said in an interview. "We're in a strong market environment with interest rates low, equity valuations staying strong, and activity levels continue in trading. We're optimistic."


Take the Lehman Brothers executive's optimism with a grain of salt. Much of the money made in the early part of this decade by the large investment firms have been from mortgage-related and other leveraged loan products. When the mortgage market began to roll-over, many mortgage trading companies went out and purchased subprime portfolios before the full impact of the subprime meltdown was felt. If one was extremely cynical, it could be suggested the mortgage trading operations were buying up loans to mask a slowdown in performance. But that has never happened on Wall Street before. Ha! Ha!

Expect more trouble in fixed income results for the big investment firms. Bear Stearns Companies Inc (NYSE: BSC) reported some of the strongest results in the mortgage market during the past five years, therefore, this stock is particularly worth watching.

The folks at ThinkEquity believe that Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN) is in for better days. They slapped an "accumulate" on the shares after carrying them as a "sell." The reason given was that TI's analog chip business should be getting better. ThinkEquity admits that the TI cell phone chip business is going to be rough for a long time. But, the research firm's sources say that the analog chip pick-up is broad and sustained. They put a new price target of $30 on the stock. It already trades above $28.

Almost any other research firm on Wall Street with an opinion on TI is worried about the stock. Stifel Nicolaus thinks TI's gross margins are down. Cathay Financial thinks that weakness in handset chips is continuing into 2007. And, Lehman Bros. has cut its earnings estimates for the big chip firm. Part of Lehman's analysis is that the analog business at TI is still "challenging."

Someone is right here and someone is wrong.

TI has two strikes on it. One is that it competes with Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) in the handset chip market. QCOM has seen better days, but it has formidable market share in the handset market. In addition to that, almost no one thinks that handset giants Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Motorola (NYSE:MOT) will do well in 2007. Margins are dropping because the demand for phones tends to be in emerging markets where cheap is better. Cheaper phones, cheaper chips.

Analog may do OK for TI. But, it can't beat the devil. The handset market is in for some rough quarters.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.