Broker Investors Want More Transparency

Investors will be looking closely at how much investment banks disclose about their balance sheets next week, as the major brokerages begin to report second-quarter financial results in the wake of Lehman Brothers'(LEH Quote) steep fall.

Though followers of financial services companies have long known that the industry's earnings statements are essentially unintelligible, the issue has increasingly come to the fore as investors seek explanations for the roughly $200 billion in writedowns that banks have announced over the last year, and they wonder how much worse things can get.

Lehman officially reports results Monday, while Goldman Sachs(GS Quote) reports Tuesday; Morgan Stanley(MS Quote) reports Wednesday. ...