Rumours had been swirling around about the fate of ECN Hotspot for weeks. Many commented that with legendary billionaire currency speculator Joe Lewis as one of its backers, Hotspot was unlikely to be experiencing a cash crunch. Nonetheless, its present owners have seen fit to accept an all-cash bid of about $77.5 million for the business from Knight Capital Group. The close of the transaction is subject to receipt of appropriate regulatory approval and is expected to be completed within 90 days of its announcement on January 24.

Venezuelans woke up on Christmas Day to find that Santa Claus had given them a brand-new toy: a Hugo Chávez action doll. In fact the doll was Venezuela’s best-selling toy this Christmas.

Japan has suffered 15 years of stagnation; a period in which an entire generation of financial innovation passed it by. Suddenly, investment bankers are licking their lips at the prospect of helping its financial markets play catch up. Some consider Japan a $500 trillion emerging market.

Ariel Sigal, chairman of Latin America at Deutsche Bank, left the bank at the end of January, and it’s far from clear whether he will return.

Japan might finally be on the road to recovery from its economic downturn but recent events have revealed a crisis of a different sort. After a human input error to a trade by Mizuho Securities in December that the Tokyo Stock Exchange trading system refused to cancel, despite requests from the broker, the TSE was rocked by another crisis in January when panic selling forced the exchange to shut early since the trading system was unable to cope with the flood of orders.

With negotiations for Turkey’s entry to the EU under way – albeit with a long lead-in time – completed privatizations, foreign direct investment and domestic deal-making are growing apace despite continuing bureaucratic hold-ups. David Judson reports.

Even after the stock market’s dramatic climb in 2005 and sudden sell-off in mid-January, a wall of money is heading into Japanese equities, reports Peter Lee. Securing greater retail investment is seen as crucial to the reconstruction of Japan’s entire financial system. Privatization, new-economy IPOs, J-Reits and private equity exits will keep the investment bankers busy until the big blue chips are ready to issue once more. In the meantime, can someone please fix the TSE’s problems?

Equine expectations

Bankers and investors question the slew of Latin American perp issues.

Although brokers, fund managers and regulators are still unable to concur on an exact definition of best execution, they all agree that any definition should take into account both speed and price.