During the past year Merrill Lynch has expanded into Irish gilts, started trading Portuguese government bonds and has been preparing for the opening of an office in Milan, planned for September. The bank's institutional customers, especially in continental Europe, have increased dramatically in number.
Other notable highlights of the year included the integration of FG Madrid in Spain, which has primed the bank for full primary dealership by the end of this year. When Merrill started to concentrate on European government bond business in 1993, it stated that its main objectives were to provide consistent liquidity in all major European markets and to increase domestically sourced business for individual products. The strategy seems to be paying off.
Top tier JP Morgan JP Morgan's European presence combines with its capabilities in the US and Asia Pacific to give the bank a truly global reach. Add pioneering risk management techniques such as CreditMetrics into the mix, as well as a very high quality of research, and it is little wonder that the bank has done so well this year.
Top tier Goldman Sachs An active market-maker all over the world and a primary dealer in a number of countries, Goldman Sachs is recognized as a top government bond trading house in all areas of the business, be it proprietary trading, repo activities, or options.