"How do you get your inside information on Merrill Lynch?" This was the question we have been asked repeatedly in the past week as some of our predictions began scoring more bull's eyes than Robin Hood on a Saturday afternoon on Nottingham Green. Regrettably the truth is far less exciting. We don't have any secret sources. Yes, we did have a tentative meeting planned with David Komansky, Merrill's chairman and chief executive, who was on a fleeting visit to London, but in the end we could not be fitted into the great man's hectic schedule. We rely mainly on our Indian scouts in New York, under the leadership of Hawkeye (that's a pseudonym) and then there are the deep throats at Deutsche Bank who emigrated from Merrill as soon as the late Edson Mitchell raised his standard.
October 12, 2001
