Merril Lynch

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Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch was founded when Charles Merrill and Edmund Lynch opened an underwriting firm on Wall Street in 1914. The company built a legacy of personalized service, and became the first major firm to introduce investing to the mass market. Charles Merrill coined the phrase “Bringing Wall Street to Main Street” and is credited with helping to change consumer attitudes about investing. Merrill advocated sound investment strategy and made it accessible to the American public using advertisements with titles like “How to Invest.” Merrill Lynch had 400,000 clients by 1956, making it the largest brokerage in the country. In 1971, the company unveiled its now-famous bull icon with an advertising campaign titled “Merrill Lynch Is Bullish On America.” In 1977, Merrill Lynch introduced one of its most innovative and successful products, the Cash Management Account, which combined checking, money market, and margin accounts.
A Modern Merrill Lynch
As more Americans turned to investing to protect and build their wealth, Merrill Lynch distinguished itself from other brokerages with the financial security it could provide, the high level of service it offered, the personal contacts it established with its retail offices, and the advanced financial research it performed. As Merrill aggressively expanded into institutional investing and banking in the 1980s, its image as a main street brokerage became somewhat muddled. The company’s association with high finance and corporate Wall Street became a negative after recession and scandals shook the economy in the 1980s and early 1990s. So Merrill streamlined its operations and developed advertising campaigns with themes like “A Tradition of Trust” that were intended to inspire confidence in the everyday investor. The company continued to grow its retail brokerage businesses and other financial services during the rest of the decade.
Recently, Merrill Lynch found its...