Editing Bulge bracket (section)

== Overview ==
Bulge bracket banks usually provide both advisory and financing banking services, as well as the sales, [[market maker|market making]], and research on a broad array of financial products including equities, credit, rates, commodities and their derivatives.  They are also heavily involved in the invention of new financial products, such as [[Mortgage-backed security|mortgage-backed securities]] (MBS) in the 1980s, [[credit default swap]]s (CDS) in the 1990s, [[collateralized debt obligation]]s (CDO) in the 2000s, and today, [[carbon emission trading]] and [[insurance]]-linked products.

Bulge bracket firms are usually [[primary dealer]]s in US [[treasury securities]].  Bulge bracket banks are also global in the sense that they have a strong presence in all four of the world's major regions: the [[Americas]], [[Europe, the Middle East and Africa]] (EMEA) and [[Asia-Pacific]] (APAC).

The name comes from the way investment banks are listed on the "[[tombstone (financial industry)|tombstone]]", or public notification of a financial transaction;<ref name="Staff"/> the more important banks in a syndicate are listed first.{{r|gilpin19871005}} There is often debate over which banks are considered to belong to the bulge bracket.  Various rankings are often cited, such as [[Bloomberg, L.P.|Bloomberg 20]], [[Mergermarket]] [[M&A]] league tables, or [[Thomson Reuters league tables]], as well as other rankings.