Stan O'Neal Has Got His Priorities Straight

Posted by Clove, Oct 26, 2007 3:09PM

First, he's not much of a golfer, and second, it looks like he's only playing on weekends, so what's the big deal? He really needs to stick around because I've made a bunch on the short side this year thanks to this guy.

Posted by 2nd Year Analyst, Oct 26, 2007 3:11PM

First Year Analyst, where is my MV regression analysis of SDM handicap home and away vs. windspeed, cloud cover and $ wagered. Punk bitch.

Posted by , Oct 26, 2007 3:12PM

3 rounds on saturday the 22nd at 3 different clubs...looks like he's trying to make it look like he's playing on the weekends.

Posted by Mortimer Duke, Oct 26, 2007 3:12PM

Do you actually think I would let a nigger run our family business?

Posted by , Oct 26, 2007 3:13PM

he could've come in on the weekends. blankfein would've.

Posted by mrpink, Oct 26, 2007 3:16PM

Mortimer, at least the 'n***er' put your ass in the poor house in the end. Here's 25c.

Posted by To The Hilt, Oct 26, 2007 3:21PM

Re: 8/12/07

"Don't count that! I was interfered with!!"

Posted by mrpink, Oct 26, 2007 3:21PM

Additionally:

Me and Lloyd here bet $1 that we couldn't get rich while at the same time putting BSC and MER in the poor house... Lloyd, I think you owe me a dollar :D

Posted by Ty Webb, Oct 26, 2007 3:29PM

Nice TTH....

Posted by To The Hilt, Oct 26, 2007 3:32PM

thank you very little.

Posted by DotHead Banker, Oct 26, 2007 3:52PM

this guy is a regular bagger vance

Posted by Random Banker, Oct 26, 2007 3:55PM

I've actually met Stan a few times. Personally, I think he done a very good job running Merrill.

If he gets fired his only mistake will have been marking to market vs. marking to model. He should have watched Lloyd done like a trader and taken gains to offset his losses by marking up some other assets.

Instead Stan's inner banker came out, he wants the balance sheet to reflect what he thinks its actually worth.

People have literally be gunning for him since the day he became CEO. Which was watershed moment for Wall Street and for America.

Tonight, I drink in honor of Stan O'Neal.

Posted by , Oct 26, 2007 3:56PM

lol bagger vance

Posted by AnonymousAnalyst, Oct 26, 2007 4:12PM

9/22: Waccabuc - way up north Westchester; Purchase - regular Westchetser; Shinnecock - all the way out on the East End, 2.5 hours from the other courses. Round of golf takes 3 hours? So 9 hours of golf, ex-the travel time? IronManStan

Posted by anon anon anon, Oct 26, 2007 4:13PM

Yo, Random, you will be drinking at his wake.

Posted by , Oct 26, 2007 4:17PM

man i havent played on a fancy pants course like that in a while but there is no way a round of golf is taking as little as three hours unless this guy is playing alone

Posted by To The Hilt, Oct 26, 2007 4:20PM

9/22 would be the the date that he posted the scores, but not necessarily the date the rounds were played.

Posted by To The Hilt, Oct 26, 2007 4:23PM

furthermore, note there are 4 scores from august 19, all designated "AI" which indicates an Away round posted over the Internet.

Posted by Finn, Oct 26, 2007 4:24PM

It might be a good time to stack up the earnings over the past five years of Merrill, versus its competitors and then analyze how Stan stacks. Or pre-Stan Merrill to Stan Merrill.

Or, he could always lighten up, go into coaching football, where, if you are of the right complexion, you can get rehired by your friends no matter how badly you do.

The way people talk you would think that Bear, Countrywide, Citi, and a host of others with radically dropped or dangling balls would be under equally intense oggling as well. I guess once you oggle black, you can't go back?

Posted by Noonan, Oct 26, 2007 4:25PM

In regards to the whole multiple rounds in one day thing....

Odds are Stan played a round that day at his club, and when posting his score decided to post his scores from recent rounds at other clubs. He's doing the right thing here from a legit handicap purpose, but his problem is that he is not changing the date of those rounds. In the MGA computer system, changing the date of rounds involves an akward step during the posting process that is easy to forget. I made the same mistake a couple times before until my Pro alerted me to the problem. If you put more than 2 rounds into the computer for a given date I don't think it takes them into consideration anyway.

Posted by Bagger Vance, Oct 26, 2007 4:28PM

He didn't play those 3 courses in the same day. That card is his handicap card from his home course. The AI next to those 3 scores on the 22nd are away internet scores. The 22nd is just the day those scores were logged into the computer. He probably played golf all week, or he just likes to post golf scores on the weekends for appearances.

Posted by Anonymous Analyst, Oct 26, 2007 4:29PM

Noonan: thanks for the tip. If Stan had paid as much attention to his numbers on the debt side as he did to his numbers on the greens side, he wouldn't be looking down the barrel of the gun that is about to be fired - or he's going to be fired - something like that.

Posted by Snarf, Oct 26, 2007 4:44PM

Wow. He scored a 9.1 on hotornot! That's even higher than JonFitzgeralPage.

Posted by angryshareholder, Oct 26, 2007 5:10PM

Would someone get him outta there for god sake. May be he canuse his free time and get some lessons from Tiger!

What a shame what a disgrace! I here tons of layoff are in the cards. Poor ML employees.

Posted by , Oct 26, 2007 5:58PM

racist fuckers.

Posted by Merrill Retired Broker, Oct 27, 2007 1:32PM

MER is a juggernaut that just "goes on" because of its huge size as well as the resulting inertia. O'Neil, in my opinion, should not get credit for the good times, nor should he be blamed for bad times. Instead he ought to be held to account for allowing the culture of 'profit at any cost' to continue.

MER has its own culture: brokers who are bribed away from competing firms (Example: a $5 million signing bonus) are REQUIRED to go to a rather comprehensive 'orientation' - either in NY or at the New Jersey campus. The aim is to "Merrilize" the new broker (that is actually the word MER uses) .

The culture and the compensation structure for stockbrokers (of which I was one) is to generate revenues - pretty much at any cost (no pun intended).

In one particularly heinous act, for example, a colleague switched a widow's ENTIRE inheritance of Coca Cola stock (her deceased husband had been with Coke for 40+ years) into MCI (the phone company). As a result:

1. The widow immediately owed the IRS a huge tax bill as a result of the sale proceeds,
2. The widow lost her dividends from Coke - upon which which she depended to live on,
3. Lost ALL her 'invested' money when MCI went bust.
4. BUT, and here is the interesting part: the broker got an EXTRA BONUS commission when he bought the MCI stock in that poor woman's account because MCI was the "flavor of the week" that week.

This incident, and the numerous similar incidents that happen daily at Merrill should be the reason that O'Neil should lose his job. I won't even start to tell you about MER's involvement with Enron....

Folks, believe me: the "loss" on MER's books was probably funny money - bloated in order to clear much of the deck for the new CEO. Merrill will still pay its dividends to shareholders, and - depending on the outcome this weekend (Mr. Fink should be named as a replacement) O'Neil can get up to $200 million as part of his golden parachute.

As for the lost jobs for MER employees: Merrill goes through the exercise of reducing staff every 5 years or so. Merrill fires those employees who don't meet corporate 'profit-per-employee' parameters.

Have a good weekend, and lets welcome Mr. Fink as MER's new CEO!

Posted by JLN, Oct 29, 2007 10:45AM

ML has screwed my portfolio over the past 16years. Its about time they all suffer. They've "EARNED", and received what they deserve!

Posted by JLN, Oct 29, 2007 10:45AM

ML has screwed my portfolio over the past 16years. Its about time they all suffer. They've "EARNED", and received what they deserve!

Posted by JLN, Oct 29, 2007 10:46AM

ML has screwed my portfolio over the past 16years. Its about time they all suffer. They've "EARNED", and received what they deserve!

Posted by TROD, Oct 29, 2007 10:10PM

You know people, I actually believe that there are more good people at Merrill than bad ones! My husband and I worked there for many years, although he eventually decided to leave because of all the autocratic pressure to sell credit cards and some product called LMA, or something like that. He also got concerned with the call center and the pressure to move some smaller accounts. (Is $100,000 a small account for most brokers?). Anyway we are better people for having been with Merrill Lynch, but I don't think that Mr. O'Neal had a lot to do with that. I would say that for the handicap that Mr. O'Neal has, he must have put a lot of time into it. My husband has an 11 GHIN and he spends WAY to much time trying to get better!

Posted by TROD, Oct 29, 2007 10:10PM

You know people, I actually believe that there are more good people at Merrill than bad ones! My husband and I worked there for many years, although he eventually decided to leave because of all the autocratic pressure to sell credit cards and some product called LMA, or something like that. He also got concerned with the call center and the pressure to move some smaller accounts. (Is $100,000 a small account for most brokers?). Anyway we are better people for having been with Merrill Lynch, but I don't think that Mr. O'Neal had a lot to do with that. I would say that for the handicap that Mr. O'Neal has, he must have put a lot of time into it. My husband has an 11 GHIN and he spends WAY to much time trying to get better!

Posted by Merrill Retired Broker, Nov 01, 2007 8:58PM

TROD:

If your husband AND YOU did indeed work for Merrill Lynch, then you would know what the LMA or CMA (etc) was.

You, my friend, are a Merrill Lynch shill. How much did Merrill pay you for your 'positive spin' post?