If you’ve owned Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers for any length of time, your investment has probably been a good thing - but today a somewhat different tale. What’s the "story"? - CNBC's David Faber explained in this morning’s “Faber Report.”
According to Faber, Bear Stearns is looking pretty good after it reported earnings--while Lehman is a different story.
Lehman has had an incredible run – but the stock is down a little over 1.5% - because Lehman didn’t beat expectations -- by as much as it normally does.
Generally the news today was positive from Lehman. The estimate $1.69. Lehman beat it! - the actual $1.72. Net income was an even $1 billion.
The downside, a number of key areas were not up, as much as investors had hoped. For example, Lehman built up its M&A practice to become one of the major players on Wall Street, but that decreased revenues 7%
For the full year, net revenues were up 20% to $17.6 billion. Faber says this is a company that has been transformed by CEO, Dick Fuld.
At Bear Stearns, the stock was up – slightly 4Q numbers were $563 million – 38% higher than the 4th Q of ’05. Bear is also benefiting from very robust capital markets.
