Lehman Brothers rising as banking power: Barron's

Lehman Brothers's lagging stock price offers the chance to buy into a rising power as it seeks to join the company of larger investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Barron's reported in its June 18 edition.

Lehman's stock lags behind its faster-growing peers, Barron's said, noting that Lehman's shares led the brokerage sector for several years. They are up 29 percent in the past 12 months, behind Goldman at 63 percent and Morgan Stanley at 61 percent, Barron's said.

This offers investors who are comfortable with going against the crowd or moving ahead of it the chance to buy the weak stock of a firm with a stable franchise that is on the rise, Barron's said.

One complaint about Lehman, however, is that at $600 billion, its balance sheet is not big enough to do many big deals, the paper reported. Goldman's balance sheet is $912 billion, while Morgan Stanley's is more than $1.2 trillion, Barron's said. Citigroup's is about $2 trillion and JPMorgan's is about $1.4 trillion, it said.