NEW YORK — Merrill Lynch & Co. became the first major brokerage to ban its analysts from buying stock in companies they research, a move designed to counter growing concern that analysts may be biased in their public assessments of stocks.

The measure, announced Tuesday, addressed one area of concern — the potential for an analyst to have a direct, personal interest in touting a particular stock. Critics of the industry were quick to note, however, it does not deal with the potentially larger problem of influence on analysts from their firms' lucrative investment banking businesses.

"I think it's a baby step in the right direction. The huge inherent conflicts of interest that remain still need to be resolved," said Benjamin Mark Cole, author of "The Pied Pipers of Wall Street: How Analysts Sell You Down the River."

Cole and others said analysts can't be considered objective until brokerages take additional steps, such as eliminating the bonuses that some analysts get for bringing business to their firms' lucrative investment banking operations.

Merrill Lynch, based in New York, said the ban on stock ownership is effective immediately and was designed to "further ensure the objectivity and independence of its research."

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"This move underscores Merrill Lynch's commitment to setting the standard for objectivity, independence and quality of research," said Andrew J. Melnick, director of Merrill Lynch's global securities research and economics division.

In a related development Wednesday, a professional group representing financial analysts around the world released an "issues paper" that includes recommendations for practices creating more objective securities research.

Among the recommendations by the Association for Investment Management and Research: requiring brokerage firms to provide an environment "in which analysts are neither coerced nor enticed into issuing research that does not reflect their true opinions," and keeping lines of reporting authority separate within the research and investment-banking functions.

The move by Merrill Lynch came several weeks after Wall Street's biggest trade group, the Securities Industry Association, adopted new voluntary guidelines for analysts, such as requiring them to clearly disclose their holdings in companies they cover and prohibiting them from trading against their own recommendations.

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