What to make of Morgan Stanley's three consecutive quarterly losses? Clearly its efforts to remake itself are hitting some speed bumps. Citigroup analyst Keith Horowitz met with Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Colm Kelleher last week, and came away fairly confident the bank has a grip on the situation, especially its recent underperformance in its fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) business, according to Reuters. In a sense, that will require a shift back to its old mindset that was all about deploying risk.

The bank has apparently moved to install fresh management, make more that 200 hires, boost capital allocated to agency flow business in liquid products, and targeting a wider customer base. There's obviously an opportunity here. In a sense, this is bad news for Goldman Sachs. Spreads are bound to decline as competition belatedly returns. 

For more:
- here's the Reuters article

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