What Really Has Wall Street Worried

Charles Stevenson, president of hedge fund Navigator Group, heads the co-op board at 740 Park Ave., home to Blackstone Chairman Stephen Schwarzman and oilman David Koch. While the Upper East Side building was picketed by Occupy Wall Street in early October, Stevenson, 64, is less disturbed by the protesters than by the problems plaguing his industry. “I don’t think it’s a time to make money—this is a time to rig for survival,” he says. “The future is not going to be like a past we knew. There’s no exit from this morass.”

Euphoria swept Wall Street in 2009 as it rebounded to record profits after the credit crisis. Now the benefits of a $700 billion taxpayer bailout and $1.2 trillion in emergency funding from the Federal Reserve have faded. An anemic global economy, the European sovereign debt crisis, U.S. unemployment stuck above 9 percent, and swooning stock markets have darkened the mood on Wall Street, where bankers worry the troubles may not end for years.