There are not many markets left in which it would be safe to invest but agriculture ought to be a safe bet.

Beleaguered Barclays, Delphic Deutsche, bank bonuses and preempting press releases.

Fit of family cultures closer than with rival Bradesco.

Libya has Africa’s largest oil reserves but last year it was only the continent’s third-biggest producer. So the decision of Bahraini Islamic investment bank Gulf Finance House to invest $400 million of initial equity into an energy infrastructure project there is understandable. This is especially so given that the bank says it will not be surprised if the Libyan government’s Economic and Social Fund, which is advising on the project, makes a similar sized equity injection. Libya’s National Oil Company is seeking to increase oil production by 1 million barrels a day in the next four years, while doubling the country’s gas capacity.

Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, has taken measures to counter the effects of decreasing petro-dollars. The president has reduced his support to foreign allies and is poised to make deeper cuts at home and abroad as oil prices plunge.

Last month a non-asset trigger event was announced for the Granite master trust. This is securitization-speak for saying the Northern Rock master trust is dead. It is now a static pool – similar to a traditional pass-thru structure. The decision to allow the trust to breach – by allowing the seller’s (Northern Rock) interest to fall below 8.75% – increases the risk of note extension on short triple As with long legal final maturities and all non-triple A-rated notes. Even so, news of the event sent all Granite triple-A spreads wider – to 560/660bp, according to RBS ABS research.

Government provides a bridge for primary market funding.

News that China’s National Development and Reform Commission is considering a new stimulus package in addition to the Rmb4 trillion ($586 billion) plan announced on November 9 will bring cheer to investors and analysts who regard the country’s growth as central to the prospects of an Asian, or indeed global, recovery from the present crisis.

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

Investors are in no position to worry about niceties in bank capital raising.

US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson seems to be making an effort to rewrite his part in the failure of the US financial system, perhaps in an effort to influence the verdict of history.

A falling oil price is limiting Hugo Chávez’s economic and political options.

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

Vikram Pandit needs a good deal, and fast, to save not just his tenure but possibly his bank.

Can a spending spree mask problems in banking and the broader economy?

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

Shinsei provides a reminder that bail-outs don’t make bad banks good.

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

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

As credit and equity markets crashed again in November, mounting problems in the US government bond markets went almost unnoticed. There are worrying signs that the treasury market itself, the last haven for risk-averse investors, is breaking down. Deliveries of treasuries failed at an all-time high of $2 trillion, and over periods lasting weeks, starting in October. Helen Avery reports.

Rating downgrades threaten CLO structures.

Thierry Porte, the president of Tokyo’s Shinsei Bank, has resigned, taking responsibility for the bank’s poor results after it lost ¥19 billion ($198 million) between April and September this year. The loss caps a run of weak results for the bank over the past two years, and Porte’s exit marks the end of an era as the firm is returned to the leadership of its chairman, the 79-year-old Masamoto Yashiro.