The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

2. Shy and Retiring

Retirement must agree with Monster Worldwide (MNST Quote - Cramer on MNST - Stock Picks) founder Andrew McKelvey.

The New York-based online jobs company just announced McKelvey's second resignation in three weeks. Monster said Monday that McKelvey would leave the board and surrender his chairman emeritus title.

The move came after the 71-year-old McKelvey declined to answer questions about possible stock-option backdating. McKelvey gave up his CEO post back on Oct. 9, citing heavy demands on his time.

"As the company's largest individual shareholder," McKelvey said then, "I remain extremely positive about Monster's future and look forward to serving as chairman emeritus, remaining on the board and contributing to Monster's category leadership in the years ahead."

Make that the weeks ahead, as Monster's stock-option backdating headache gets bigger and bigger.

The company in July joined dozens of other corporate bad citizens in saying it would have to fix its compensation accounting. Monster cautioned it "has not yet determined which historical financial statements would be restated."

To listen to McKelvey's lawyer, though, financial statements aren't the only ones that could stand some revising. Steven Reich, McKelvey's counsel at Manat Phelps & Phillips, sent Monster's board an email Sunday backing away from comments McKelvey made in a discussion with directors that, in retrospect, didn't come out quite right.

"In looking back on that session," McKelvey's lawyer writes of a July interview with a Monster board committee, "it is now clear to Mr. McKelvey that he did not express his thoughts and recollections as clearly or accurately as he would have liked."

Dumb-o-Meter score: 91. "He continues to have the best interests of the company very much at heart," Reich writes of McKelvey.

Sounds like another restatement just might be in order.

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