12 SEPTEMBER 1998, Page 28

This week's offer

YOU HAVE to admire the Merrill Lynch salesman who this week came up with a new reason to buy shares. They have fallen so far, he says, that investors can buy twice as many as they could a year ago: 'It is a case of buy one, get one free.' And if they halved again you could buy four for the price of two. They briefly took him at his word as this week started, cheered up by the latest gnomic message from Alan Greenspan at the Federal Reserve, hinting at letting them off the next rise in interest rates. A few more steepling falls and Wall Street will be back to the level where he warned it against irrational exuberance.