Both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs lobbied the Federal Reserve to become bank holding companies over the weekend. Their bid was approved by the Fed, ending the era of the independent investment bank.

The Federal Reserve Board on Sunday approved, pending a statutory five-day antitrust waiting period, the applications of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies.

In light of the continuing degredation of the US credit market and the recent collapse of Lehman Brothers and AIG (not to mention the Merrill Lynch sale) Morgan Stanley is considering whether it will need to merge with a deposit-taking bank to remain afloat.

While Lehman's assets are getting a true mark to market in bankruptcy court and Merrill and Bank of America are busy hammering out the details of their proposed merger, investors have turned their attention to Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

Morgan Stanley today announced new leadership for the company as Zoe Cruz retires after 25 years of service.

Continued Market Deterioration Since August Reduces Fair Value of Morgan Stanley's Subprime Exposure by $3.7 Billion – as of October 31, 2007

One of the biggest problems Morgan Stanley's wealth management unit has been facing in recent years is a steady loss of top-producing financial advisors (FAs). Each one was taking important clients and their assets to rival brokerages. During the 2005-2006 period, Morgan Stanley's turnover rate among FAs ran to nearly 11 percent.

Morgan Stanley, the biggest oil trader on Wall Street, has hired a tanker to ship 80,000 tons of fuel oil to the Far East from Saudi Arabia, a shipbroker said.

A Milan judge has ordered Citigroup, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank to stand trial for market-rigging in connection with dairy firm Parmalat's collapse, judicial sources said according to Reuters.

On May 10th the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Jennifer Xujia Wang, an employee of Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc., and her husband, Ruben Chen a.k.a. Ruopian Chen, a former employee of ING Investment Management Services, LLC, with insider trading.

On May 9th, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission announced settled fraud charges against Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated (Morgan Stanley) for its failure to provide best execution to certain retail orders for over-the-counter (OTC) securities.

The American Stock Exchange began trading Morgan Stanley's Bear Market PLUS Based on the Value of the S&P 500 Index.