"What we built yesterday was daring and impressive, but it's just a prelude to what we will build tomorrow. Reading the following pages about the challenges and opportunities facing our businesses, we remain fundamentally optimistic about our clients' prospects and our own ability to prosper in an environment of accelerating convergence by financial institutions. Given the vitality of our clients and the intelligence, energy and invention of Merrill Lynch people, we begin this new century as bullish as we began the last."

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