During the course of our weekly research, we read a number of industry news sources and come accross several articles about the industry, firms we track, products, and so forth that are worth reading. Poring throught the myriad industry resources is not an easy task and we figured our clients face their own daunting reading list. Thus, we thought it would be useful if we cull that down a bit and use our blog to highlight the several articles that we felt are worth a review. We’ll try to do this weekly and please feel free to respond by posting links to any articles you think are relevant.

Here is this week’s batch:

  • What if Your Broker Goes Belly Up? (BusinessWeek) - The alarmist media strikes again and answers 6 questions for investors about what to do if their brokerage firm fails. Now might be a good time to show your customers that you’re not going anywhere.
  • Lehman CFO Erin Callan: Back From Ugly Monday (BusinessWeek) - Maria Bariromo interview’s Lehman’s CFO. An interesting look into Lehaman’s take on the JPMorgan/Bear deal, and how opening up the discount window helps financial firms.
  • Street of Fear (BusinessWeek) - More doom and gloom from the media.
  • Bear Stearns Brokers Getting Set to Jump Ship (InvestmentNews) - Annual revenue per Bear rep in 21007 was more than those at Merrill, Morgan Stanley, and Smith Barney. And they are not happy with the prospect of the new owners.
  • Headache for Ameriprise (InvestmentNews) - A lawyer who has made a living by representing advisors and investors in lawsuits against Ameriprise for the past decade says his biggest case against the firm is yet to come.
  • Special Report focusing on Retirement Income (InvestmentNews) - this includes several articles that discuss recent trends in retirement income products.
  • No Thain, No Gain (Forbes) - A profile on Merrill Lynch and John Thain. How is Merrill doing? To quote the article: "Aside from its obvious troubles…Merrill is in damn good shape."