Rear View Mirror: Cayne Gone Fishin’

The week that was..

Words can’t do justice to the carnage we witnessed in the recently completed trading week. But there is always a highlight, or lowlight.

Despite a heavy week of earnings, the main event was the Bear Stearns conference call Friday. Judging by the way the market traded in the last 10 minutes of the day, the call was fumbled badly.

“The fixed-income market environment we’ve seen in the last eight weeks,” Molinaro said on a call held to address Standard & Poor’s cut of its outlook on Bear’s credit rating, “has been pretty extreme.” thestreet.com

While we can appreciate CFO Sam Molinaro’s color commentary, the other members of Bear’s Politburo need to step up and lend a hand. But they had better things to do. Did the call mark Jimmy’s swan song?

The extreme stress may well have caught up with the 73-year-old Cayne, judging by his diffidence on Friday’s conference call..... Cayne opened the call by saying he was “extremely pleased” with how Bear Stearns workers had handled an emerging credit crisis. He said the firm was “taking the situation seriously.”.

He then turned the floor over to Molinaro—and wasn’t heard from again. At one point, an analyst asked whether this year’s 33% drop in Bear Stearns shares made for an opportunity to buy back stock

“I think this one might be for Jimmy,” the analyst said, before going on to explain why the circumstances might justify a buyback.

There was silence on the other end of the line as it emerged that Jimmy wasn’t there. Molinaro then took the question, saying Bear is focused now on making sure it has “ample liquidity.”

Things are getting a little bizarre on Wall Street. Jim Cramer was nearly reduced to tears on the 2:45 CNBC Stop Trading segment yesterday, pouring his guts out in a plea for Bernanke to take action. 

Yes, the first week of August 2007 will go into the history books as one of the strangest ever.

And while the underlings at Bear might be powerless to send their Boss packing, his attitude might be best summed in a song.

So, dont ask me no questions
And I wont tell you no lies
So, dont ask me about my business
And I wont tell you goodbye

I said don’t ask no stupid questions
and I wont send you away
If you want to talk fishin,
well I guess that’ll be ok

Don’t Ask Me No Questions
-Lynyrd Skynyrd

We have seen the enemy, and it is us.

Bear Stearns Cayne Goes Awol
theStreet.com
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