Andy Xie, Former Chief Economist for Asia at Morgan Stanley drops tidbits of knowledge that you should be listening to.

John Mack is a legend on Wall Street, and the CEO at Morgan Stanley.  The man oozes charm.  Very-well connected to both sides of the aisle, he’s a force to be reckoned with.  It’s hard to hate him, even if he is member of the Secret Society of Super Villians.

In the darkest hours for Morgan Stanley, while he wore the face of confidence to the troops, secretly he confided to his wife that,”he may lose the firm.”

This made for mini-series article about those white knuckle hours brought to you by bloomberg.

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Disclosure: Sold it in all of our discretionary accounts a long time ago (third-party managers exempt).

Opinion: Morgan Stanley is in the midst of an identity crisis and frankly, I don’t think they’ve got what it takes to run a strong retail experience.  Whether it’s operations, costs, or technology, Morgan seems to be straddled with too many legacy issues from the Dean Witter merger (and heart of their retail operations).

Adding Smith Barney to the mix is not going to help; to the contrary. Adding more people on the same creeky boat is not my idea of synergistic. I don’t know if I would sell it if you still own it, but count on no (or almost no) dividend soon.  If the dividend matters to you, sell it now and think about buying the preferreds. We own the US Preferred Index.