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| 2001 News and Press Releases |
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HEADLINE ARCHIVED:
The Year In Ideas: A To Z.; Blame The Brokers
By: Richard Siklos
The New York Times. December 9, 2001
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Excerpt: When the irrational exuberance has vanished, taking with it $4 trillion of capital from the nation's stock markets, who is to blame? A growing army of bellicose investors has come to believe that the culprit is not impersonal market forces or their own excess greed -- it's the brokers who are to blame. Aggrieved investors argue that the way reputable Wall Street firms like Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston pumped up Internet and technology stocks was no better than the notorious schemes of small-time "boiler rooms," and they've filed an array of class-action lawsuits against major Wall Street firms and a record number of individual claims with the National Association of Securities Dealers. According to the Fordham University securities-law professor Constantine Katsoris, a veteran N.A.S.D. arbitrator, a burst in client complaints always follows a slide in the market. This year's suits, however, make a specific and often compelling claim: Wall Street analysts hyped the very Internet stocks whose dubious I.P.O.'s their firms were underwriting. The other new twist is that some investors are actually collecting: a New York doctor, Debasis Kanjilal, captured Wall Street's attention in July when Merrill settled his arbitration case for $400,000.
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