New York Times: Merrill bars analysts from buying stocks they rate. But Tuesday’s move does nothing to eliminate the most significant area of conflict: the role that rhapsodic research can play in supporting the firm’s very lucrative investment banking business or in attracting new deals.
Watching Wall Street fake sincerity over its blatantly unethical behavior is more sickening than enlightening. Yet even Merrill Lynch’s itty-bitty concession to reality is more than the rest of the street’s slimeballs have done.
It is, plain and simple, an admission of prior unethical acts — and don’t let the spin get in the way of that truth.