Merrill Lynch

By Megan Murphy, Justin Baer, Francesco Guerrera, Patrick Jenkins, Jeremy Grant, Martin Arnold and Sam Jones

Few fund managers have been spared the ignominy of writing occasionally apologetic letters to investors. Temasek, Singapore’s investment agency, has an enviable track record and, with the government its sole shareholder, has rarely had to face tough public questioning. Not any more.

16th September 2008, on Yahoo Finance...

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080915/wall_street.html

Stocks retreat amid new Wall Street landscape
Monday September 15, 11:51 am ET
By Tim Paradis, AP Business Writer
Stocks fall but pare steepest losses after Lehman bankruptcy, Merrill sale; AIG remains worry

Few things stir the blood more than Wall Street firms getting into a good old scrap. Put aside the internecine squabbling at Morgan Stanley - they don't come much better than the current dust-up between Citigroup (metals "super cycle") and Goldman Sachs (oil "super spike"), and Merrill Lynch - whose chief equity strategist, David Bowers, on Monday poured water on the idea of what he described as a resources bubble.

In the highly unlikely event that Goldman Sachs loses $500m in its fourth quarter, which closes this week, it is sobering to think that it would still make record profits this year. Despite mediocre market conditions, a mild slowdown in the fixed-income markets, and the failure of the equities and merger and acquisitions businesses to recover, Goldman Sachs made more money in the first nine months than in any previous year.