Financial Printing--Riding Out The Stocks

"In turn, that volatility resulted in a softening in new issues underwriting and reduced mergers and acquisitions activity," he adds.

As for the not-so-ill-fated fourth quarter recap, Greco states the financial segment is—as Packquisition's Weiss assures—showing indications of improvement.

"Still, it is impossible at this time to extrapolate how those trends might affect the outlook for 1999," Greco cautions, while turning his thoughts to the SEC.