A new survey just released by Alpha magazine has ranked �Morgan Stanley best at executing orders for pan-European equity trades�. The result of the survey was reported in the March/April issue of themagazine. Institutional Investor surveyed money management head traders of selected companies which invest in the European Equities market.

According to the details of the survey, the results were only derived when the votes of hedge fund managers were counted alone. Traders in the survey were asked to choose their best brokers taking into consideration their performance in the pan-European equities execution for various trades.

UBS was ranked a close second in the area of pan-European equities trading but the firm was ranked first in the area of pan-European sales-trading. In the area of U.K Equities alone, the surveyed managers gave the top spot to Merrill Lynch. Citigroup was ranked third in all the three categories surveyed.

According to Alpha Magazine, the level of Assets controlled by the largest 25 European funds increased by 44 percent during the twelve month period ending on September 30, 2004. Simon Greenwell, head of Equity research for Merrill Lynch�s European operations said, “Long-only managers want the standard proactive service — analysts making the calls,� Greenwell further explained that �Hedge funds don’t want that, what they do respect is for us to be very responsive to their requests.”

Paul Oranika, Editor-in-Chief Hedgeco.net Email: Editor@hedgeco.net