Morgan Stanley Marks Down $3.7 Billion, Cuts Outlook

Morgan Stanley joined Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citigroup Inc. in booking losses on subprime mortgage- related assets and said the outlook for credit markets is bleaker than in September.

The second-biggest U.S. securities firm by market value after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it lost $3.7 billion in the two months through Oct. 31. Prices for securities linked with home loans to risky borrowers sank further than traders expected, cutting fourth-quarter earnings by $2.5 billion, the New York- based bank said. The figure may change by the end of the month.

Merrill Lynch, the third-largest firm, said two weeks ago that it wrote down $8.4 billion of leveraged loans and fixed- income securities while Citigroup, the biggest U.S. bank, said Nov. 4 that its holdings lost as much as $11 billion of their value in October. Colm Kelleher, Morgan Stanley's chief financial officer, said markets may take three to four quarters to recover instead of the one or two he predicted in September.

``The healing process will take longer,'' Kelleher, 50, said in an interview yesterday. ``The dislocation in the market has been quite severe, liquidity has dried up.''

Concern about potential writedowns at Morgan Stanley has pushed the stock lower this week, bringing this year's decline to 24 percent. The shares fell 6.9 percent to $51.19 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday and traded up at $51.35 in Germany as of 11:15 a.m. local time. Citigroup and Merrill are both down more than 40 percent this year.
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