From Mr Erik Johnson.

Sir, In your advice that the US should embrace sovereign wealth funds ("Wanted: investors, no strings attached", editorial, January 15), you mention how the markets might welcome such capital injections (when do markets ever abhor new capital?). And yet you acknowledge that a lack of transparency might hide problems in sovereign funds. At a time when institutions are taking significant writedowns on their credit portfolios, a similar lack of transparency is being blamed for obfuscating the risks.