NYSE's Role as Regulator Questioned

[True_Blue]

Industry Group's Protection Of Investors Seen as Secondary
By Ben White and David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 14, 2003; Page A01


NEW YORK -- The New York Stock Exchange is the designated first line of defense for investors, charged by federal authorities with ensuring that its Wall Street members do not violate the rules of fair trading. But it was New York State Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer who forced the issue of analysts' conflicts, long known within the Wall Street community, into the public with his probe.

It was only after the Spitzer investigation that an NYSE panel found former Salomon Smith Barney stock analyst Jack B. Grubman guilty of violating its rules for, among other things, misleading investors by writing rosy research reports on dubious companies. It banned him for life from the securities industry.

Investor groups and academics have long questioned whether an industry organization like the NYSE can aggressively police its members. Now the controversy over NYSE Chairman Dick Grasso's pay package, which included a $139.5 million deferred compensation payout this month, and his comments that he sees his job as two-thirds businessman and one-third regulator, has put the exchange's regulatory record under the microscope.

It has led to calls from some investor groups and even some members of the NYSE for Grasso's resignation. Critics have also suggested that it is time to rethink the exchange's regulatory role.

more...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6773-2003Sep13.html

[Code_Name_D]

1. There is nothing wrong with investigations.

Just be sure nothing ever comes of it.

[rapier]

2. Total BS from WP

That's funny. The opening of that story is a total pile of crap. Absurd. The NYSE isn't 'charged" with any legal responsibility by the Feds. Who dreamed that one up. I doubt even the PR flacks at the exchange wouldn't try to pass of BS like that.

The purpose of the NYSE and its members is to make money for themselves and their clients, the corporations whos shares they market. Always has been, always will be. And a finer bunch of thieves and grifters has never been assembled in any one place.

[whathappened]

3. i call them the rolling mob

these people suck the money in and then cause a down spin and let a few take a hit and lose there money and buy out the one's who can't stand to lose anymore and then start all over again , sucking the money in , only a few make the big bucks , the 90's was a different time and most made money until the big drop and now only a few will ever make money off this scam anymore