Perhaps we can begin by asking, “What does it really mean to deepen the bond market, to develop it? What are the barriers to an efficient, transparent and fair market?” How can we enable more people to have access to capital? How do we increase scale and efficiency? Should we take a deeper look at the secondary retail market?
Although aggregate data on profits for all of 1997 are not yet available, corporate profit margins most likely remained in an elevated range not seen consistently since the 1960s. These healthy gains in earnings and the expectations of more to come provided important support to the equity market, with most major stock price indexes gaining more than 20 percent over the year.