When Merrill Lynch reported solid second-quarter earnings last July chairman and CEO Stan O’Neal sent employees a memo boasting about the firm’s risk management prowess. Only three months later Merrill Lynch took its historic $8.4 billion write-down for losses in mortgage-related securities with Citigroup and others soon reporting unprecedented credit losses as well. If the capital markets are models of efficiency it is fair to ask how could such staggering losses happen? Two Wall Street titans -- Lloyd Blankfein chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs and Kenneth Moelis of Moelis & Co. -- addressed that question at the recent Wharton Finance Conference in New York City.
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