Befuddled Money Manager Seeks One Honest Broker: David Pauly To the ever-patient shareholders of Sophocles Value Fund:

Financial Cowboys Need to Be Lassoed, Corralled: David Pauly Maybe the $30 billion in new money Merrill Lynch & Co. has raised still isn't enough. In any case, Merrill and its three big Wall Street rivals must be required to have fixed amounts of capital, certainly more than they would maintain on their own.

Financial Stocks Rise Wondrously on Woeful Results: David Pauly Holy cow. Bank of America Corp.'s second-quarter profit dropped only 41 percent. Only.

General Electric Can't Shake Off Financial Stigma: David Pauly General Electric Co. is finally doing what it should have done years ago: It's breaking up into more- manageable parts.

Confessions of a Money Manager With Nowhere to Go: David Pauly Dear shareholders of the Sophocles Value Fund:

Dazzling Dandelions Foment New Commodities Craze: David Pauly Commodities speculators have a new darling: dandelions.

InBev Takeover Might Mean Bitter End for Budweiser: David Pauly Say it won't happen. I keep reading that InBev NV, the world's biggest brewer, might try to buy Anheuser-Busch Cos., the U.S.'s largest beer company.

Financial Bettors May Be Making a Capital Blunder: David Pauly Credit is scarce but not capital. Mortgage-ravaged banks and Wall Street firms often have to borrow from the Federal Reserve, as lender of last resort, to meet current bills. They have no problem at all raising big sums from investors for future use.

How Old U.S. Steel Leapt Off History's Scrap Pile: David Pauly U.S. Steel Corp., at age 107, is another example of why watching markets is such fun. A dog for decades, the Pittsburgh-based company has been on an extraordinary run.

Commodities Boom Still Is Startling, and Confusing: David Pauly Two years ago, almost to the day, I wrote a column with this headline: ``Everybody's Into Commodities -- You'd Better Duck.''