New criteria for Merrill Lynch credit rating reports

Merrill Lynch will no longer base its credit rating reports for institutional investors on market weights, according to a news release. Instead, the firm's recommendations will be based on the investment policies of individual institutional clients, more accurately factoring in the use of credit derivatives. Merrill will now recommend that an institutional client overweight or underweight an individual credit compared to the client's own investment guidelines rather than to its weighting in a benchmark; it will also consider the impact of credit derivatives when it lists its "primary investment driver."