Tick, tick, tick

ONE way of finding out about the rot inside a bank's loan portfolio is by waiting for the bank to tell you itself, a process that, depending on the candour of the bank, could take years. The growing syndicated loan market in America increasingly offers a quicker method. Since companies often use banks to arrange financing quickly before issuing stock or bonds, the market for syndicated loans is often revealing about embryonic trends in credit. These are worrying.