Judgments

Wall Street analysts told a Senate panel Wednesday that the judgments made by a majority of those covering Enron Corp. to continue recommending the stock as a “buy” through mid-November 2001 were based on publicly available information that ultimately proved to be wrong. And despite supposed conflicts of interests within the analysts’ companies — many of which were lending money to Enron at the same time their analysts were recommending buys — the analysts testified that the “Chinese Wall” maintained by research and investment units prevented their judgment from being swayed.