But back to Maguire, who was quite determined to clean up the business of commodities trading.
Shares of Enron, which is based in Houston, plunged $1.59, or 10.3percentto to $13.81, continuing the daily trading losses dating to Oct. 17, when Enron reported $1.01 billion in losses from investments outside its business of trading commodities like electricity and natural gas.
"That's the type of commodity business we want to avoid," says Kao. Instead, Kao is going after the PDA market, where margins can be higher for those with a distinct product.
Days earlier the bank said it would leave the business of trading physical commodities altogether.American authorities brought criminal charges against SAC Capital, a hedge fund at the centre of an insider-trading probe.
DealBook » A Slimming Wall Street Giant | Morgan Stanley has been shrinking its business of trading bonds, commodities and other investments, leaving that to be dominated by its Wall Street rivals, Susanne Craig reported.
In the three years that Mr. Gorman, 54, has been at the helm, the bank has been progressively shrinking its business of trading bonds, commodities and other investments and expanding into wealth management.
The Japanese have proven themselves masters of "commodity" businesses; but moviemaking, television production, and book publishing--the "software" businesses that Sony coveted--are about as far from commodity operations as can be.
They have little alternative, if they wish to avoid becoming a collection of commodity businesses.
Such a deal, if consummated, would boost Alcoa's share of the North American market to about 35%, up from 26% today; APA would have 20%.The forces driving aluminium companies together are the same as those behind the consolidation of commodity businesses such as chemicals and oil.
Requiring end users "to post margin to its counterparties would have a serious impact on our ability to invest in and grow our businesses," Craig Reiners, the director of commodity risk management for the brewer MillerCoors, said in prepared testimony before the committee.
