What everybody ought to know about this credit business

Changes in the regulation of the financial services sector and the introduction of a common currency have simultaneously reduced banks’ willingness to hold exposure to corporate risk and investors’ ability to buy that risk. So the business of transferring credit risk is booming

Soon after the Second World War, Merrill Lynch sensed – quite rightly – that the US stood on the brink of an equity revolution, and that thousands of small investors could be persuaded to channel their savings into the stock market. To push them on their way, Merrill published a 6,000-word advertisement in The New York Times on October 19, 1948 entitled ‘What everybody ought to know about this stock and bond business’. The piece, deliberately couched in layman’s language, proved so