Monday: Fido Jostles Top Spots

By John J. Edwards III
Staff Reporter

Things are quiet on sunny Wall Street this midday, with little economic data and few ultra-exciting earnings releases in the mix. "The market is too strong to collapse and yet too weak to make new highs," as the daily

Hegarty's Options Navigator

from

Thomson

observed.

Meantime, with stock prices doing not much of anything,

Fidelity Investments

is in the midst of another personnel shakeout. The company said this morning that J. Gary Burkhead is leaving his post as president and CEO of

Fidelity Management & Research

, the company that oversees the Fidelity family of funds, to become vice chairman of

FMR Corp.

, Fidelity's parent company.

A Fidelity spokeswoman, in an interview with

The Street

Friday, denied that any movement was afoot concerning Burkhead. Must have been a busy weekend.

Robert C. Pozen, a 10-year Fidelity veteran and the firm's general counsel, who orchestrated the firm's entrance into the complex Japanese markets, will succeed Burkhead.

In addition, Bart Grenier, assistant head of Fido's equity unit just since January, is resigning to join former Fido guys Daniel Harmetz and David Breazzano at

DDJ Capital Management

in Wellesley, Mass. Jeff Vinik, Brian Posner, Larry Greenberg, now Grenier -- pretty soon all they'll have left is everyone's money.

The Wall Street Journal

reported this morning that Grenier may leave the firm.

On Wall Street, where the Boston shenanigans have been whispered about for days, some traders are tee-heeing about

Morgan Stanley

(MS) - Get Report

and

Dean Witter Discover's

(DWD)

pending merger. The venerable white-shoe bankers of Morgan Stanley and the more retail-focused pros of Dean Witter announced in February plans to unite into the largest U.S. investment firm. Although the full merger is still pending, the two quietly combined their equity research departments early this month.

Some of the first evidence of that marriage is evident in Morgan Stanley's weekly tome "U.S. and the Americas Investment Perspectives." How are the politics playing? Morgan Stanley strategist Byron Wien's commentary continues to open the report, followed by comments from similarly respected Dean Witter strategist Peter Canelo. And in a remarkable new twist for MS, the report contains a technical analysis from Dean Witter's Philip Roth. We wish the newlyweds all the best and look forward to finding out their china pattern.