There’s no question Wall Street is undergoing a transformation of sorts with the recent rash of job losses and do-or-die consolidations. But once the dust has settled - what then?
It just may be the start of Wall Street’s warm and fuzzy rebirth, Forbes reports.
“The new Wall Street will be, in some ways, a friendlier place,” writes Michael Maiello. “Investors are no longer interested in secretive hedge fund managers and inscrutable quant trading strategies, and so personal relationships and personal responsibility on the part of financial advisers will be paramount virtues.”
But this supposed new Wall Street — where banks both big and small can flourish, where the personal touch is paramount — has a lot of skeptics to win over. Just today, Fidelity Investments said it was reviewing its staffing amid speculation of 4,000 layoffs. Meanwhile, reports that battered banks have set aside an estimated $20 billion for bonuses is surely confounding news for the thousands of newly-axed bankers left in their wake. What’s more, a new survey shows that most financial professionals aren’t just hoping for a bonus, they’re expecting it.
Is Wall Street capable of making a positive change, or is it headed for more of the same? Share your thoughts with us below.
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7 comments so far
same same but different
- Posted by ASThink wall street types will lie low until the dust settles. Personal greed and the quest for glory which has driven much of wall street activities in the past is at odds with the kinder, gentler wall street. Old habits die hard.
- Posted by Ganesan Srinivasanthanks for now.
- Posted by samsonI am a hedge fund manager. What is Wall Street?
- Posted by John BlodbrettWhat the hell? I thought golden parachutes for executives were already severely limited by the multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded bailout law…without Pelosi, Reid and Boehner having to beg the Bush administration to put the skids on such lavish foolishness, i.e., multi-million dollar severance packages coming out of taxpayer-provided funds! Good grief!
OK Jack
“WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders from both parties in the U.S. Congress on Wednesday urged the Treasury Department to crack down on distressed banks’ use of taxpayer money to hand out fat paychecks to departing executives under the Bush administration’s $700-billion financial bailout program.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote to Treasury urging strict limits on “golden parachute” pay to executives of companies getting taxpayer money.
House Republican Leader John Boehner, of Ohio, sent a similar letter, “questioning Treasury’s apparent decision to permit banks to use bailout money to pay bonuses to executives and acquire other banks,” he said in a statement.
(Reporting by Kevin Drawbaugh, editing by Dave Zimmerman)”
- Posted by OK JackThis wasn’t the first boom and bust and won’t be last. Memories are very short in this industry.
- Posted by KTI am the CEO of a bulge bracket investment bank. What is a golden parachute?
- Posted by John Blodbrett