Shitty day on Wall St (or at least at MER)

http://www.dealbreaker.com/2008/01/like_feces_throwing_monkeys_me.php#more

Setting The Story Straight On The Merrill Bonus Rage

Earlier this afternoon, CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino reported that some guy in Merrill Lynch’s fixed income research group had “inappropriately relieved” himself in protest of the downsizing of his bonus. Merrill has officially explained that this was simply an unfortunate accident, and then the bank turned red and scurried to the other side of the room.

We’ve been digging into this story because the way it’s told by the delicate souls at CNBC, it’s way to vague. What worse, the vagueness is giving rise to rumors that are totally untrue. It's fast becoming the Wall Street equivalent of an urban legends. Here’s what didn’t happen: a guy did not urinate on his desk because he was “pissed off.” The real story is so much worse.

In the first place, it wasn’t piss. It was shit. DealBreaker can confirm this much. After that the details get a bit fuzzy. The way we first heard it is that a guy took a dump in the rest room, stomped in it, and then dragged it all over the place by walking around with it on his shoes. Merrill’s story is that there was “an unfortunate accident” in one of the stalls—which we take to mean that some guy smeared his shit all over the bathroom because how the Hell could you miss the toilet—and that another person inadvertently stepped in it and tracked it all over.

So now you know.

But wait, there's more.

http://www.dealbreaker.com/2008/01/the_only_bullshit_story_thats.php#more

The Only Bullshit Story That’s Totally True: More Details Emerge
Was It The Start Of A Civil War Between Equities and Fixed Income?

Merrill Lynch’s famous bull logo has taken on a new aspect now that nearly everyone on Wall Street knows the story about the “unfortunate accident” that led to an employees shit being spread all over the place. And we’re not talking about a CDO squared portfolio.

The incident took place on the nineteenth floor of Merrill’s headquarters in the World Financial Center, according to our sources. The floor houses the fixed income group. Bonuses for the group are said to have dropped substantially from last year, although the decline was not as bad as some expected. The more senior guys are said to be very upset at their compensation but associates are pleasantly surprised after having their expectations lowered so dramatically.

But there may be more to this story than just a bonus rage. The story has been widely discussed within Merrill itself, and the predominant belief there is that it wasn’t a dissatisfied fixed-income researcher who engaged in the fecal protest. Inside the bull pen, the word is that it was an equities guy who came over to the fixed-income department and “inappropriately relieved” himself. He was supposedly seeking revenge against fixed-income for credit-market losses that have affected bonuses across the firm.

The plot thickens.

 

I "smell" fodder for some episodes of CSI and Law & Order out of this----Ding! Ding!

 

Definitely Equity guy. No Bond guy would do that. Equity guys? In a heartbeat, or a bowel movemen.

I hear he didn't even have to go. He mustered one up for effect.