• by September 19, 2008

Thank you for your article! As a former employee of the financial industry, and having a husband who is a broker, I enjoy reading about the financial industry.

In the first paragraph you have an error: "Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch--were sold and in Chapter 11, respectively..." That's not in the right order to be referred to "respectively." Lehman went bankrupt and Merrill was sold.

Also, I hardly think Lehman was a "cornerstone" of the financial industry. Been around a long time? Yes. But a cornerstone? I think that's debatable.

Another factor concerning your article that's not exactly mentioned is the difference between an institutional and commercial banking concern. I think it's somewhat important to point out that Lehman was an institutional concern, whereas Merrill is commercial in that it's a brokerage. These are all very surface observations... just my two cents.

I enjoyed your article very much, though, and agree that Bank of America definitely needs to calm any fears their clients might have, as do other banks and brokerages, for the mere fact that people don't understand the differences as explained above.