O'Neal takes the blame

Stanley O'Neal is at least a stand up guy. He personally led the earnings conference call to discuss Merrill Lynch's dismal 3Q losses. He used the word "I" enough to make clear where the buck stops.

According to Business Week Online, Michael Mayo of Deutsche Bank, took a fairly tough line during the call, noting that none of the bank's peers took an $8 billion writedown. Despite his tough questions, Mayo is bullish on the stock. He did cut his price target by 25 percent. But neither O'Neal or Jeff Edwards could say that there will be no future writedowns. And you have to wonder how exposed the bank remains to CDOs and mortgage-backed issues. You have to assume that more ratings agencies will pare ratings on these issues. While the worst may be over, there may be more pain to come.  

For more:
- here's the Business Week Online article

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