Wall St banks seen holding junk-bond baby

New York

IN recent years, Wall Street firms have reaped big profits in the scrappy reaches of the credit markets, selling the debt of companies with weak credit ratings to investors who crave higher returns.

But now, as investors have suddenly grown skittish, some big Wall Street banks have been stuck with piles of debt that they are struggling to sell. As a result, they are starting to book multimillion-dollar losses as they write down the value of these positions.