Disgruntled investors are going after Wall Street once again,
this time accusing one of investment bank Morgan-Stanley's
high-tech mutual funds of making biased stock picks.

Recent lawsuits allege the Morgan Stanley Technology fund was
influenced to buy and hold stocks of companies that delivered
huge investment banking fees - or could potentially bring big
business - to the investment bank.

According to the lawsuits, the Morgan Stanley fund followed
the biased recommendations of the firm's analysts - decisions
that have cost shareholders millions of dollars since the
portfolio's October 2000 inception.

The fund lost 48 percent in 2001 and was down another 50
percent during the first nine months of 2002. While Morgan
Stanley strongly denied the allegations, I fail to see how the
management of the fund is somehow distinct from the other
divisions of Morgan Stanley. Ultimately, they all work for the
same boss.

The suits further claim that the tech fund failed to disclose
that the firm had investment banking ties with a number of
companies whose stocks were part of the portfolio. They also
failed to reveal that those links could affect the fund's buy
or sell calls.

Why bring all this up? For one thing, it is interesting to
note that Morgan Stanley offered four of these types of funds
in October 2000. Just around the time when we sold all of our
positions (Oct. 13, 2000) and it became clear, at least to
those of us who were tracking long-term trends, that a major
trend change had taken place.

More recently in the news it's been Merrill Lynch who had a
questionable deal involving transactions with failed energy
trader Enron. Of course, the financial services industry
regulates itself so well, that an $80 million payment to the
SEC is sufficient to wrap up this case without admitting or
denying wrongdoing.

What's the moral of this story? While it is impossible to
predict these alleged conflict of interest schemes, it is
definitely possible to follow a disciplined approach and be on
the right side of the market so you can avoid jumping aboard
a sinking ship.