Central bank president sees no need for recapitalization, nor guarantees for deposits or liabilities.

In November, Grand Canyon Education, a provider of online education services, broke the US market’s 15-week drought of IPOs with a $126 million deal, ending the US’s driest spell since 1975.

If Congress is intent on playing the blame game, what of those who lend the stock?

The platform’s chief executive, Phil Weisberg, says the firm is ready to face the difficulties of a bear market.

57 the level of the State Street Investor Confidence Index, a record low

Agency brokers build fixed-income teams.

Uncertainty over bridge loans for infrastructure projects.

Bumper results produced by many FX units are likely to prove a sideshow in what will be a year of write-downs and general value destruction.

Dubai’s property bubble has finally burst. For Abu Dhabi, it is a pain, but also an opportunity.

Sifma’s new covered bond group seeks to find a consensus among traders. But with no public covered bond market in evidence, why now?

Once out of favour, futures traders are coming into their own by maintaining solid positive returns in grim markets, argues Neil Wilson.

The Asian units of the world’s leading investment banks have not been immune to the industry-wide job cuts being announced.

Multilateral trading facilities have been gaining market share in recent months but the market itself has been shrinking. MTFs’ conspicuous success is also attracting some unwanted attention.

Parex banka, Latvia’s second-largest bank, has been effectively nationalized by the authorities in Riga after a run on the bank. Under the agreement with the Latvian government, some 51% of Parex banka shares were transferred to the state-owned Mortgage and Land Bank of Latvia with a buy-back option after one year. Majority shareholders Valery Kargin and Viktor Krasovitsky will retain a 34% holding, with the 15% balance retained by minority shareholders. The state will also provide a €285 million loan to Parex. Commenting on the government’s move, Latvian prime minister Ivars Godmanis says: "It is necessary to do everything to avert disruptions of the banking and financial system." As part of that, his government is seeking between €1 billion and €3 billion from the IMF and the EC to rescue Latvia’s economy.

As was widely expected, the government in Kazakhstan has stepped in to support the central Asian republic’s embattled banking sector. Since the onset of the global credit crunch last August, Kazakh banks have found themselves under severe pressure given the choking off of cheap funding from abroad, which helped to finance the rapid expansion of branch networks and lending portfolios at home. At the same time the domestic economic environment has deteriorated rapidly, with GDP this year expected to come in at 4.5% – less than half the 10% average annual growth levels seen since the start of the decade. The straitened economic circumstances have also led to a sharp increase in bad debt levels. While pre-credit crunch non-performing loans were in the range of 1.5% to 3% they have now jumped to 7% to 8% although some observers believe the true figure is as high as 15%.

In response to the impact of the global economic crisis on central and eastern Europe, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is looking to increase its investments in 2009. EBRD president Thomas Mirow has outlined a proposal to invest up to €7 billion, a record amount for any single year since the bank was founded and 20% higher than previously planned. As EBRD investments have typically attracted additional funding from commercial partners of at least 2:1, EBRD-led financing could exceed €20 billion in 2009.

Jobs are far from the only concern as the car icons plead to Congress.

This crisis is only going to end when the root cause of the problem – the housing market – is fixed.

A survey of 100 institutional investors conducted by business school EDHEC showed that only 15% have invested in replication products, with 30% reporting that they will never do so. The majority of respondents doubted that the behaviour of hedge funds could be replicated and criticized the products’ poor performance, lack of transparency and deficient technology.

Henning Rasche, president of the association of German Pfandbrief banks (VDP), has resigned as a member of the board of managing directors at Eurohypo, effective December 31. His replacement will be Ralf Woitschig, head of public finance at Eurohypo’s parent, Commerzbank. Rasche, who was re-elected to the VDP presidency in June, has been at Eurohypo or its predecessors since before the jumbo Pfandbrief market launched in 1995.

"If you track our market performance since the election in early March... there is probably less volatility" -Dato’ Yusli Mohamed Yusoff, Bursa Malaysia

Fertilizer maker CF Industries is looking to invest $1 billion to develop petrochemicals plants in Peru. The company plans to build two plants – one producing ammonia and one urea – the company’s president announced at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum, attended last month by leaders from 21 Pacific Rim economies. Peru is working to persuade foreign companies to invest billions of dollars to develop petrochemicals plants that can utilize products coming from Peru’s Camisea gas field.

Are we already into the era of unconventional monetary policy?

Gatwick sale will test appetite for infrastructure assets.

Up to now interest in volatility as an asset class or strategy has been limited.

In a stark reflection of the reliance of Spanish securitizers on the European Central Bank’s largesse, the Spanish government has itself agreed to purchase Spanish RMBS and SME CLOs. It has established a Financial Asset Acquisition Fund that will purchase securities with a minimum double-A rating up to €50 billion in volume. Spain has also introduced a mortgage moratorium for the unemployed under its mortgage policy facility. This will enable jobless workers and pensioners with families to support to defer mortgage payments for up to two years. The moves reflect concern about the impact that Spain’s real estate slump will have on the wider economy.

The past few months have been significant for Austrian exchange Wiener Börse’s attempts to position itself as the prime conduit for portfolio investment in central and eastern Europe. In a notable run it has managed to secure majority control of three exchanges in the region. Most recently, it signed an agreement in November to acquire a 92.4% stake in the Prague Stock Exchange, one of the largest in central and eastern Europe, with a market capitalization of about €40 billion.

In its latest report on OTC derivatives market activity, the Bank for International Settlements says that notional amounts of FX derivatives increased by 12% to $63 trillion in the first six months of 2008. Gross market values rose by 25% to $2.3 trillion. The expansion was fastest in options and currency swaps. BIS reported that outrights, which account for roughly half of total OTC FX derivatives when measured in terms of notional amounts, grew less quickly.

The losses in the long/short strategy favoured by the majority of hedge funds show no signs of abating.