Morgan Stanley CFO Colm Kelleher somehow kept a straight face when he told a Dow Jones Newswire reporter, "We always said 2009 was a year of transition, and what you're getting is a validation of that."

Translation from Streetspeak: "Year of transition" means "business as usual" and "validation" means "profits so big I think I'm going to shit myself."

The WSJ story on this matter notes that Morgan Stanley's risk-taking is paying off, just as it already been at Goldman Sachs. Morgan's just now trying to catch up, being slow on the profit uptake during this year's market rally. Nevertheless, as DJN's Gabriella Stern points out:

The NYT's Frank Rich, always frank about the rich, recently noted, in "Goldman Can Spare You a Dime," that no one but the bailed-out firms themselves are profiting from their resumption of risk-taking: