Morgan Stanley

Squeezed by the sharp downturn in the housing market, one of the nation's largest homebuilders has sold the bulk of a luxury townhouse development in Baltimore's Federal Hill to a local developer who immediately cut prices about 20 percent. Lennar Corp. sold 22 homes in the 26-unit Federal Place development off Key Highway to Terra Nova Ventures. Lennar, largely a suburban builder, has no other projects in the city. The sale closed Nov. 29. Although terms of the sale were not disclosed, Terra Nova principal David F. Tufaro said the deal allowed the new owner to set prices it felt were more in tune with the current market.

Last week's arrest of a Morgan Stanley analyst and her husband might help to explain why stock in Town & Country Trust weirdly started rising in December 2005. But it doesn't explain everything. Even if the two alleged inside traders bought 3,000 shares of Town & Country days before the Baltimore apartment landlord announced it was being sold, as federal authorities charge, their activity wouldn't come close to making the stock behave as it did. Nearly 2 million Town & Country shares changed hands one day shortly before the deal was announced - the biggest volume in at least a decade.

Columbia network security company Sourcefire Inc. is expected to go public later this week, hoping to raise as much as $77.3 million to fund growth. Sourcefire plans to offer 5.77 million shares for between $12 and $14 per share, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week. Of those, 450,000 shares are being offered by stockholders and 5.32 million are for new shares of the company's common stock. The company's stock will trade on the Nasdaq stock market under the ticker symbol FIRE.

McLEAN, Va. -- MCI WorldCom Inc., the No. 2 U.S. long-distance phone company, is in talks to buy nationwide wireless phone company Nextel Communications Inc., people familiar with the companies said.Nextel has hired Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. and Lazard Freres & Co. to advise it in the discussions. Salomon Smith Barney Inc. is advising WorldCom. Nextel shares have surged about 22 percent over the past three weeks amid takeover speculation, raising its market value to almost $11.5 billion.

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- U.S. investors should pay brokers an annual fee of no more than 1 percent of the equity assets they hold for full-service accounts, Merrill Lynch & Co.'s brokerage chief contends.That's what Merrill is charging for an account it started in July that combines a broker's advice with unlimited trading over the Internet, and it's less than half the 2.25 percent that rival Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. is charging clients who have less than $250,000 in similar accounts."I think 2 percent is too high," said John Steffens in an interview after a speech to 700 members of the Securities Industry Association at their annual conference here.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks were mixed yesterday. The Dow Jones industrial average recovered almost all of a 118-point plunge as banking and computer shares rallied, while concern that profit won't justify big gains depressed most shares.Many traders were expecting a large decline yesterday after Abby Joseph, strategist for Cohen Goldman, Sachs & Co., and Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alice M. Rivlin warned that stocks may have risen too far, too fast, and Brazil's budget crisis is worsening.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks were mixed yesterday. The Dow Jones industrial average recovered almost all of a 118-point plunge as banking and computer shares rallied, while concern that profit won't justify big gains depressed most shares.Many traders were expecting a large decline yesterday after Abby Joseph, strategist for Cohen Goldman, Sachs & Co., and Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alice M. Rivlin warned that stocks may have risen too far, too fast, and Brazil's budget crisis is worsening.

NEW YORK -- Morgan Stanley Asset Management Chairman Barton Biggs is advising clients to scale back stock holdings in the U.S. and emerging markets, saying he is troubled by a large number of declining stocks and the poor performance of small- and medium-size companies and computer-related shares.Proceeds from selling stocks in the U.S. and emerging markets should be devoted to cash holdings, typically 90-day U.S. Treasury bills, Biggs says in a forthcoming research report."The tone of equity markets around the world is deteriorating," Biggs, 65, wrote in the report.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks rose yesterday for a third day on expectations that lower interest rates will help spur earnings growth even as economies slow.The Dow Jones industrial average rose 79.04 to 8,024.39, bringing its three-day gain to 408 points, or 5.4 percent.The Dow is down 14 percent from its July 17 high.The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 7.96 to 1,037.68 and the Nasdaq composite index climbed 12.42 to 1,678.11.Among other broad indexes, the Russell 2,000 index of small capitalization stocks inched up .01 to 357.73; the Wilshire 5,000 index gained 75.09 to 9,453.

Orioles owner Peter Angelos said yesterday he has declined to increase his bid for the Washington Redskins, but hasn't received any formal notification that he's no longer in the running to get the team.Angelos said he assumes he's no longer in contention, but he dislikes the blind bidding process being conducted by the investment banking firm of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in which he doesn't know what the other bidders are offering."Let's just say the whole process and procedure is not one that we find appealing," Angelos said.

Over the years, I've asked a lot of men about their fathers-in-law: whether they get along with them, whether they play a significant role in their lives. These conversations took place over a beer, or on a fishing trip, maybe at an Orioles game. I usually had to bring the subject up; in most cases, the guys I've known wouldn't do it themselves, or there just wasn't much to say. They had married the man's daughter, and that was about it. My friends and fishing companions were far more likely to talk about their own dads, not those of their wives.

Cordish Co. sells stake in Kansas casino project Baltimore developer the Cordish Co. has agreed to sell its share of a proposed Hard Rock casino/entertainment project at a Kansas racetrack to Penn National Gaming Inc. to focus efforts on a proposed slots casino in Anne Arundel County. Cordish announced Thursday it is selling its 50 percent interest in Kansas Entertainment LLC, a partnership with the owner of Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, to Penn National for an undisclosed amount. A subsidiary of Penn National had been competing with Cordish for a Kansas gaming license at another location.

It's a shame the rest of American finance can't clean itself up like Legg Mason did. If Wall Street could confess to terrible losses and sweep them out the door the way the big Baltimore money manager did, we might be closer to ending the recession. Stage by painful stage, Legg bailed out its money-market customers for a total of $2.3 billion in losses on paper linked to mortgages and other funky bets. The final junk got dumped into the recycling bin two weeks ago, when Legg disposed of $300 million in debt issued by a "structured investment vehicle" for $49 million - a paltry 16 cents on the dollar.

Morgan Stanley has requested the first part of a $1.5 million city loan to assist with the company's expansion in Baltimore, saying it will create the first third of an expected 900 new jobs in the city during the next three years, a Baltimore Development Corp. official said yesterday. Members of the city's Board of Estimates gave final approvals for the loan in December. The first $500,000 is tied to the creation of 300 jobs by December 2012 and is expected to go to Morgan Stanley in the next month, said Jeffrey Pillas, the BDC's chief financial officer.

NEW YORK - Citigroup Inc.'s stock sank yesterday to its lowest levels since November as investors wondered how much more cash the troubled bank will need. Citigroup Inc., in an effort to raise capital, is hammering out a deal to sell the bulk of its retail brokerage to Morgan Stanley. The joint venture - expected to be announced this week - would lead to an after-tax gain for Citigroup of $5 billion to $6 billion, a person close to the negotiations said yesterday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the talks.

Somali pirates drown after getting ransom 3 MOGADISHU, Somalia : Five of the pirates who hijacked a Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a $3 million ransom, a relative said yesterday, a day after the bundle of cash was apparently dropped by parachute onto the deck of the ship. The Sirius Star and its 25 crew sailed safely away Friday at the end of a two-month standoff in the Gulf of Aden, where pirates attacked over 100 ships last year. The drowned pirates' boat overturned in rough seas, and family members were still looking for four missing bodies, said Daud Nure, a pirate who knew the men involved.

Morgan Stanley is in advanced talks with Citigroup Inc. to form a joint venture that would combine the brokerage units of both banks and give Morgan Stanley a 51 percent stake, according to a person familiar with the matter. An agreement could be announced as soon as this weekend, said the person, who declined to be identified because the deal is not complete. Morgan Stanley would pay cash for control of the venture and would have an option to increase its ownership to as much as 100 percent in coming years, the source said.

NEW YORK - Morgan Stanley Inc. shares plunged more than 22 percent yesterday as investors questioned the investment bank's future even with a major investment from Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. Yesterday marked the fifth straight day that shares of the nation's second-largest investment bank have been pummeled. The latest round of selling was triggered on renewed fear that Morgan Stanley's credit ratings might be cut, a move that threatens earnings power. The potential for a downgrade heightens pressure on chief executive John Mack, who spent most of yesterday meeting with major investors to reassure them about the firm.

Columbia Bank to merge with two others The Columbia Bank said it is merging with two of its sister banks, Hagerstown Trust Co. and The Peoples Bank of Elkton. The Columbia Bank will have total assets of $2.4 billion when the merger is completed. The three banks are all subsidiaries of Fulton Financial Corp. The merger, which is subject to the approval of bank regulators, is expected to be completed during the third quarter of next year. Andrea K. Walker Big fall in energy drops consumer prices WASHINGTON : Consumer prices in August posted the first monthly decline in nearly two years as Americans finally got some relief from surging energy prices.

Five years ago, John Slaughter had his fingers on the pulse of the stock market. One day last week, the one-time stockbroker's fingers were: inside the ear of a rambunctious retriever in Glen Burnie; seeking a vein on the leg of an aging beagle mix downtown; and wrapped around the giant muzzle of a Great Dane in Hampden. For Slaughter, the path from workaholic investment counselor to house-call veterinarian was prompted by a series of defining moments -- some that came in blinding flashes, as when he shot and killed an intruder in his rowhouse in 1993, some that seeped in more slowly, as with the knowledge gained during his trips to Africa.