WALL Street is suffering from a bad case of rock-and-roll fever.
In the same week that Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor were officially inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, top strategists at three different Wall Street brokerages decided to use rock-song titles as the headlines for their reports.
Discussing the Treasury Department’s backing of several innovative tax-reduction strategies, Lehman Brothers political analyst Kim Wallace titled his report “Gimme Shelter” after the blockbuster song from the Rolling Stones. It made sense, considering that tax shelters were explained in the report.
Meanwhile, over at Prudential Securities, Senior VP Ed Keon sought to reassure worried clients about the market’s volatility with some investment guidelines. He named his report “Fire and Ice,” which female rockster Pat Benatar popularized in the early ’80s. Since the market has been alternately fiery and icy, that title also made sense.
But Salomon Smith Barney clients had to search deep into economist Robert DiClemente‘s Comments on Credit report to figure out why it was called “Hey, Nineteen,” which also happens to be the name of a Steely Dan song.
After reading up on the nation’s overall economic health, the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate stance, job growth and unemployment statistics, readers would have finally — two dense pages later — found the source of the title. DiClemente was impressed that car and light truck sales jumped to an annualized pace of nearly 19 million in February.
Perhaps a better, more readily recognizable song title to steal would have been “Truckin’,” the Grateful Dead masterpiece.