Indeed, brokerage stocks seem to have even less short interest, an indication that the sector is favored more than commercial banks, which have greater exposure to the hazards of interest-rate fluctuations.

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At present, the main ploy is fixing interest to low levels so the government can borrow money from its captive savers at below commercial rates, while eroding its debts via inflation rising faster than the rate of interest at which it borrows.

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The discipline forces commercial banks to do a pretty good job of matching assets and liabilities in interest rate sensitivity.

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Efforts this year to curb liquidity and a surging economy including four interest-rate rises and seven increases in the amount of money commercial banks must deposit at the central bank have shown few results.

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And if central bankers sought to control money, however defined, by targeting the monetary base cash in circulation and commercial-bank reserves held with the central bank they lost control of the short-term interest rate, which might move erratically and damage the economy.

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They're still attractively priced. (Except for Pfizer, which sells near 40 times next year's numbers and is too rich.) Other enticing prospects lie with commercial finance companies that aren't oversensitive to interest rate changes--such as Heller and CIT, both of them very cheap.

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