Merrill Lynch hid its toxic subprime exposure inside off-balance sheet “Special Purpose Vehicles” (like one named Pyxis) until autumn of 2007 when CDO specialists at Moody’s figured it out and set off alarm bells that forced Merrill to revise its self-reported subprime exposure from $15.2 billion to $46 billion, according to an August 9, 2010 New York Times article by Louise Story, “Merrill’s Risk Disclosure Dodges Are Unearthed.” And ? get this ? Merrill’s senior executives supposedly did not know what was going on!