Morgan Stanley gains most among banks

Morgan Stanley (MS) gained the most of any major U.S. bank in New York trading as concern eased that Europe’s debt crisis would expose the firm to losses from French banks.Morgan Stanley rose as much as 6 percent after Brad Hintz, a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst, wrote in a note to clients that the New York-based lender faces less than $2 billion of risks linked to France. Potential losses connected to French banks wouldn’t exceed 65 cents a share, according to Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Securities LLC.A $2 billion exposure “is not good, but it’s not threatening in any fashion,” Bove, who expects Morgan Stanley to rise to $31 over the next 12 to 18 months, said in a telephone interview. “There’s no certainty that the French banks are going to fail, and No. 2, if they do fail, there’s no certainty that all $2 billion will go down with the French banks.”Morgan Stanley said in a filing last year that its exposure was about $39 billion to French lenders, which are falling on concern the region’s sovereign-debt crisis will spur losses. That figure exaggerates the value of the New York-based bank’s actual risks because it includes all funds in French accounts, such as client holdings, and excludes collateral posted to Morgan Stanley, according to Bove and Hintz.Management has increased capital and boosted its liquidity pool to contend with Europe’s crisis, Hintz wrote.Morgan Stanley climbed 59 cents to $13.65 at 11:41 a.m. in composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the second- biggest increase among the 81 companies on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Financials Index. The company’s shares had dropped 52 percent this year through yesterday as global equities fell into a bear market this week for the first time in more than two years.Mark Lake, a company spokesman, declined to comment on analysts’ estimates of Morgan Stanley’s foreign risks.