Business Notes WALL STREET

As a high school student, Stephen Sui-Kuan Wang Jr. boasted that he would make his first million before turning 30. When he joined the Morgan Stanley investment firm, the young financial analyst seemed well on his way. But Wang's role in multimillion-dollar deals still amounted to rudimentary research.

Now Wang, 24, stands accused of trying to make up the difference through insider trading. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged last week that the $35,000-a-year analyst provided secret information about takeovers that Morgan Stanley was working on to Fred Lee, 38, a wealthy Taiwanese businessman. Lee allegedly used the information to make at least $19 million in illegal profits from 25 stock deals. The SEC is seeking $76 million -- the disputed profits plus triple damages -- from Lee and Wang. Their insider- trading penalty would be second only to the $100 million paid by Ivan Boesky.

The investigation started in February, when the SEC noticed that an unusual number of shares in E-II Holdings, a consumer-products firm, had changed hands a few days before the company was taken over. After four stock exchanges reported similar trades, the SEC traced them to Lee. A check of Lee's phone calls led investigators to Wang. The SEC says Lee paid the analyst $200,000 for the tips, but the Taiwanese investor claims through his lawyer that virtually all the information was public knowledge.