Fuld takes blame for Lehman's huge loss

Lehman Brothers Chief Executive Richard Fuld took the blame for the company's staggering second-quarter loss, and said the investment bank was too slow in reacting to the credit crisis.

"This is my responsibility," Fuld declared in his first comments since the bank forecast last week it lost nearly $3 billion from bad bets in mortgage-backed securities and other risky investments. As the longest serving CEO left on Wall Street, his mission now is clearly to restore confidence to the firm's tarnished image.

"We made active decisions to deploy our capital, some of which in hindsight were poor choices because we really didn't act quickly enough to the eroding environment," said Fuld, sounding agitated on a conference call with analysts.