So Y2K worries are fastening on two other targets. Merrill analysts are sanguine about Canada, Australia and industrial Europe. In Japan, the sectors the government oversees appear well-prepared. This includes finance, utilities and air transport. But smaller companies, which supply the biggies, have been slow to act.
Poor disclosure makes readiness harder to assess in the developing world.
Still, Merrill expects most of Latin America to escape economic dislocation. Asia's key companies also appear to be Y2K-compliant. But they might be undermined by outages at state-run power plants, which haven't had the money to check all the chips in their older plants. For countries at relatively high risk, Merrill fingers China, India, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. In the United States, by contrast, the major risk is fear itself.