Well it's been a rocky ride. John Mack, a key player during the financial crisis, will step down as chairman of Morgan Stanley by the end of the year. When he took over as chairman and CEO of the investment bank in 2005, the firm was trading above $43 a share. As he's poised to step down, it's just above $16 a share, down from a peak near $75 as the chart above shows. Obviously, between that period, a little thing called the financial crisis happened, which required Mack to pull off some cunning moves, as The New York Times reports:

He ramped up risk after returning to the firm, giving it some of its former swagger, but was unable to pull it back in time in 2007 and 2008 as the New York bank sustained significant losses. During the financial crisis, the firm required billions of dollars in emergency support from the federal government as well as a big investment by Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in order to survive. Mr. Mack however received credit for negotiating the Mitsubishi deal, convincing the Japanese bank to move ahead with the partnership despite the difficult environment.

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John Hudson