Crisis of Confidence
Photo by Jin Lee/AP Photo
On Wall Street, there is no commodity more precious than trust. A history of success and the size of the balance sheet may not matter if clients and investors are suspicious about what is going on inside the firm. The Street has a long history of bank panics, usually triggered by scandal. Some survive; most do not.
Read the story
Free Fall
Photo by Keith Bedford/Reuters/Landov
No collapse was as fast and furious as that of Refco, once among the largest commodities brokerage firms in the world. Just weeks after its chief executive, Phillip Bennett, center, was accused of fraud, the firm was in bankruptcy, abandoned by its customers in a stampede to the exits.
Read the story
Surviving the Whispers
Photo by Vincent Yu/AP Photo
The Asian financial crisis rocked all Wall Street firms. But one of the smallest at the time, Lehman Brothers, was especially rattled. In September 1998, its stock price was battered by talk of a possible bankruptcy filing. The rumors were so persistent that even the New York Stock Exchange investigated (and found nothing). Lehman survived its ordeal and has become a much stronger player on the Street.
Read the story
Who's Minding the Traders?
Photo by Adam Nadel/AP Photo
Kidder, Peabody fired bond trader Joseph Jett in 1994, accusing him of generating phantom trades that appeared to show $350 million in profits. After the scandal, its parent company, General Electric, lost confidence in the firm and sold it.
Read the story
The Savior
Photo by Marcy Nighswander/AP Photos
Salomon Brothers was rocked by a crisis in confidence in 1991 after it became ensnared in a Treasury auction scandal. Warren Buffett stepped in as chairman and took control, and the firm survived.
Read the story
Junked
Photo by Mark Peterson/Reuters/Corbis
Drexel Burnham Lambert became a powerhouse in the 1980s thanks to Michael Milken and his junk-bond trading desk. But scandals tied to Milken ultimately brought the firm down. Drexel settled insider-trading charges in 1989 but could not survive long into the following year.
Read the story
Turning a Deaf Ear
Photo by Bettmann/Corbis
When E.F. Hutton talks ...? People stopped listening after the firm pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud in 1985 in a check-kiting scandal. E.F. Hutton was sold to Shearson Lehman two years later. (Announcing the 1987 deal is Peter Coen, left, C.E.O. of Shearson Lehman, and Robert Rittereiser of E.F. Hutton.)
Read the story
NEWSLETTER
RSS
MOBILE
HELP
On Tape With Mitt Romney
RSS
Mobile