Are Merrill's Fixed Income Traders Slacking Off?

Posted by John Carney, Jan 17, 2008, 3:31pm

To judge from the comments and our email, many of our readers think we’ve lost our minds on Merrill Lynch. We were impressed by the performance of Thain and Co. on this morning’s earnings call and wrote a good deal about it early this morning. We thought it was a strong performance but readers point out that shares of Merrill have been plummeting all day long. They say this indicates that the market doesn’t buy our evaluation of the earnings call. We’re not so sure. It may have been far worse if Thain and his guys had come off as badly at Vikram Pandit’s guys did on Tuesday.

We aren’t yet at the point where we’re going to be swallowing Thain’s kool-aid but our attention to his words might have led us to overlook something in his interview with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo. This afternoon Street Insider points out that the interview took place on the fixed income trading floor. Why do it there? Well, perhaps to prove that people are still trading fixed income—or that the place has totally been totally cleaned up since that unspeakable incident we wouldn’t stop talking about earlier this week and last week. (Update: They were on the seventh floor, twelve floors below the scene of last week's crime.)

But this might not have had the desired effect. The traders on the fixed income floor seemed oddly unoccupied, gathering in the background and looking at their boss—or perhaps themselves—on television monitors. This has people wondering why these folks weren’t busy engaging in actual trading.

“Traders usually do not have time to do many other things, than trade, but this morning this small group of traders were more concerned with their tv appearance than making money for Merrill Lynch,” Street Insider says. “I don't know if this should tell you something about how John Thain runs Merrill, or if this was just a few traders that had a slight lapse in judgment, in what has been very tough days for Merrill Lynch workers in recent weeks.”

Merrill Lynch Traders Do Not Appear Too Busy [Street Insider]

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Posted in: CNBC, Merrill Lynch

Comments

Posted by jag, Jan 17, 2008 3:46PM

Here's the video:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=624777926&play=1

Posted by anonymous, Jan 17, 2008 3:54PM

Is Citi firing people this week?

Posted by , Jan 17, 2008 3:57PM

BofA is getting rid of their CDO guys in NY and Charlotte pre-earnings.

Posted by , Jan 17, 2008 3:57PM

Look at time it was taken... before the open ..

Posted by , Jan 17, 2008 3:59PM

jesus christ ... how many times do we have to tell you ... EDIT before you post!!!!

Posted by , Jan 17, 2008 4:03PM

Is Morgan Stanley lay off starting this week or the next?

Posted by , Jan 17, 2008 4:04PM

man...if Carney was my first yr analyst I can't imagine how horrific his emails would be...f*cking read what you write before you post

Posted by slimjim, Jan 17, 2008 4:04PM

@ 3:59 Edit before you post, you have the personality of an invalid.

Posted by , Jan 17, 2008 4:08PM

@ 3:59 - JC is a proper name must be capitalized. Edit your own f*ckin posts.

Posted by NSD, Jan 17, 2008 4:10PM

@3:59 - jesus christ ... how many times do we have to tell you ... DONT LIKE IT? DONT READ IT.

Posted by , Jan 17, 2008 4:13PM

Ron Paul would get his posts right the first time, everytime.

Posted by mrpink, Jan 17, 2008 4:14PM

@3:59:

If you don't like it so much, why don't you volunteer to be a proofreader for Dealbreaker. Quit your job, go work at DB. Instantly, your problem is solved, and you can stop with the inane whining about silly ass things, which in the context of everything else, doesn't really add up to shit.

Your Pal,
Mr. Pink

Posted by slimjim, Jan 17, 2008 4:16PM

Thats because Ron Paul only got upset once. When his only Son was crucified by Pontius Pilot.

Posted by mrpink, Jan 17, 2008 4:17PM

Oh and i needs to make one grammaktically inkorrekt post just to pizz you off because i know how much you hate poor editing so i am just going to keep running this sentence on and on my friend, this is the sentence that doesn't end, some moneky started typing without knowing what it was.............................

Posted by , Jan 17, 2008 4:18PM

"It may have been far worse if Thain and his guys had come off as badly at Vikram Pandit’s guys did on Tuesday." are not the words of a guy who says he has a policy to not speculate about the actions of stocks John. i'm calling you out on this one.

Posted by slimjim, Jan 17, 2008 4:21PM

It would have been far worse if Thain followed through with his original plan. To show them a scat video staring Vikram Pandick.

Posted by more importantly, Jan 17, 2008 4:22PM

i read an article about blogs and the fact that they dont have to be edited-- that the "authors"/"journalists"/"comedians" write is suppose to be just banged out quickly and then you worry abt editing later...the IDEA the content is conveying is more imporant than the perfection of it.

Seriously, wtf is wrong with you guys that keep picking at this? have you guys taken it up the ass from your bosses so many times that you, too, are now machines...go be a copy editor who makes $32k/yr and bust as many ppls balls as you want re spelling and such...

enough defending carney- now, JC, my issue w you is that you have a hard-on for Thain. There was other stuff going on today, not sure if you noticed that or if you contract w MER states that you must exclusively post about them.

maybe JC is being nice to MER so they don't go the way of BSC and cut off the site

Posted by inIT4the$, Jan 17, 2008 4:23PM

Anon 3:57

Depends on what kind of FI traders they were, some don't need an "open" if their market is OTC. So long as there is another side to the trade it can be done (and don't gimme that DTC must be open BS, I've done trades at 7am before).

Posted by seriouslyTHOUGH, Jan 17, 2008 4:30PM

did wrote? I mean that's pretty damn bad. I did done wrote this post meself.

Posted by , Jan 17, 2008 4:31PM

Can we please get back on topic here and talk about how Ron Paul will save America?

Posted by , Jan 17, 2008 4:32PM

was there any corn identified in the deucage?

Posted by slimjim, Jan 17, 2008 4:34PM

@4:30 looks like someone did not get to go skinny dipping in the kiddie pool today.

Posted by Anon, Jan 17, 2008 5:12PM

Later in the interview they all looked pretty damn busy.

Posted by sheila, Jan 17, 2008 6:05PM

Yes, after CNBC went to commercial, I think Merrill reprimanded the culprits behind Thain and they were no longer on the screen by the time it was over.

Posted by JorgeCad, Jan 17, 2008 7:37PM

I can assure you that MER bond traders are busy. Just completed a trade with one of their monkies, BSC 08's and damn if they were not harsh on pricing. Must be the Thain magic. Does MER ever sleep?

Posted by ML FI trader, Jan 17, 2008 9:05PM

Behind Thain were the CDO bankers. Of course they had nothing to do. No joke. Nothing to do but wait to be shot.

Posted by SoonTobeOutOfHere, Jan 18, 2008 6:50PM

Ironically, the interview with CNBC was conducted in the backdrop of CDO trading (no pun intended!!)

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