SHORT INTERESTS: TIPS, TRENDS, OBSERVATIONS

Caffeine headache

Long-Term Capital Management LP can’t keep out of the news, although the hedge fund’s only apparent link to Brazil is all the coffee drunk by the people from the 14 institutions trying to keep it alive. It lost $60 million — 1.27% of its net assets — in December — insiders said, after a 21% increase the previous month. The widening yield curve caught the grief for the loss. Not only that, but Ben Aitkenhead, who heads commercial mortgage trading at Credit Suisse First Boston, said at an industry conference that Long-Term is still financing some of its mortgage repurchase agreements through his bank, one of the rescuers. Most people had believed that Pacific Investment Management Co. had picked up all the fund’s repos last year. More coffee, please.

Take the long view

The question of the century has been answered, thank you: $82 billion-asset American Century Investments is stuffing its Twentieth Century fund brand into the dustbin of history. The Kansas City, Mo., fund manager operated as Twentieth Century Cos. itself until three years ago, when it saw the handwriting on the calendar and changed to a more ambiguous moniker. It’s dropping the Benham handle, too. Where does this leave all those 20th Century foxes?

Read-hot brokers

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. was tops in sell-side research in 1998, according to an annual survey by analyst-tracker First Call Corp.

Stephen S. Roach, in particular, was cited as commanding the greatest audience among the Boston firm’s 22,500 institutional money manager subscribers. He edged out Morgan Stanley colleague Byron R. Wien, who nevertheless maintained his status as most-read analyst in North America. Both men topped the Europe rankings, Mr. Roach for the full year and Mr. Wien for the fourth quarter.

But top honors for North American research went to Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. The New York wirehouse was rated the top brokerage in bond research overall and in junk bonds, where Richard J. Byrne was named top analyst.

Sorry, wrong name

Deana Lynn Kelly, the newest addition to Evensky Brown Katz & Levitt in Coral Gables, Fla., is known to most clients only by her last name. The reason? Alas, a sound-the-same first name and even all three of her initials were already taken — by partner and Evensky better half Deena L. Katz.

Says a company newsletter profiling the new staffer: “Due to the similarity in her first name with another vital person in the firm, we found that two Deanas created quite a bit of office confusion.”

Indeed, after putting a caller on hold, the office receptionist asked: “Which Dina did you want again?”

Ms. Kelly, 31, hails from Pennsylvania and most recently lived in Santa Barbara, Calif. She has a business master’s from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University, with a concentration in financial analysis.