Morgan Stanley Makes Its Move

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- John Mack should retire more often.

Since Sept. 14, the first trading day after Morgan Stanley (MS Quote)'s legendary Chairman and CEO announced he would step down from the CEO spot at the end of the year, the stock was up 11% through Monday, well ahead of the share performance of financial counterparts like Goldman Sachs (GS Quote), JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote), Citigroup (C Quote), Bank of America (BAC Quote), which have all traded down over that same time period. Shares of Wells Fargo (WFC Quote)are just a few cents higher over that time.

The two events are not coincidental, according to Richard Bove, analyst at Rochdale Securities.

"Though John Mack has a big persona in the business, I don't think that his tutelage of the company has been the most effective, and I think that his replacement is widely respected and I think that the CFO of the company, this guy Colm Kelleher is also well thought of so I think one big plus is a change in management where universally everyone agrees that the right people are in the right place," Bove says.

To be fair to Mack, he is staying on as Chairman and remains CEO, and much of the positive sentiment appears to come from Morgan Stanley's solid third-quarter earnings coming off of low expectations, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Carrier.

Morgan Stanley was caught flat-footed in the second quarter, as Goldman and other banks turned in huge trading profits. Now the firm is "finally playing offense in trading," according to a report from Wells Fargo analyst Matt Burnell. Burnell and Bove both praise the company's Smith Barney joint venture with Citigroup, where Morgan Stanley has the larger stake as is expected to eventually take full control of the wealth management business.