“Continuation of falling home prices, rising food prices, rising energy prices and higher unemployment will result in a pull back on the part of U.S. consumers,” Thain said at a press briefing in Mumbai Wednesday. That “will continue to drag the U.S. economy for the next 6 to 12 months.”

The largest U.S. brokerage has no immediate plans to raise more capital, Thain said. Merrill has written down US$31.7 billion in assets while its stock plunged 45 percent since the beginning of 2007 as the meltdown in the U.S. subprime-mortgage market spawned a global credit squeeze.

Thain, Merrill’s chairman and CEO since December, aims to restore profitability at the securities firm after three consecutive quarterly losses. He has raised more than US$13.6 billion to bolster capital, overhauled risk-management practices to pare down credit-market losses, and recruited executives from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., where he worked for about 25 years.

Subscribe to The China Post and save.  Click hereSharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 800 characters max

Receive China Post promos

Respond to this email