Saxo Bank has had a mixed press this year, which is perhaps testament to the fact that it can no longer be considered to be a junior upstart in foreign exchange.

India’s largest corporates, desperate to shore up working capital or pay the interest on overpriced flagship acquisitions, are trying every trick in the book to raise cash from investors, banks and non-bank financial institutions.

Few would have predicted such a result given the underlying doom and gloom in the financial markets, but Icap’s 16th annual charity day, held on December 10, proved another outstanding success. The company donates all of its brokerage earned during the day to various charities. Last year, it raised a record £9.2 million ($14 million) and few realistically expected that figure to be surpassed. However, despite the sombre mood nearly everywhere else, the atmosphere at Icap was buoyant. As has become the custom, the company’s offices around the world were visited by a string of celebrities throughout the day.

According to a statement released after the Latin American Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (Claaf) meeting in December, Latin American governments could have very limited access to credit in 2009. The committee, which includes former finance ministers and central bank governors in the region, fear that Latin American borrowers could get crowded out of the credit markets as the US attempts to fund its fiscal deficit of more than $1 trillion. As large volumes of US treasury bonds are issued so the Latin governments, which face financing needs in excess of $250 billion next year, will have to develop "powerful and innovative" new mechanisms to direct money back to the region, warned the Claaf committee.

Markets are positioned for something akin to the Great Depression. With so much doom and gloom in the air, now is the right time to buy equities.

The endless series of new index lows has repeatedly confounded investors who see equities as having become cheap again. The rally at the end of last year has raised hopes once more that valuations might have found a bottom. However, for some leading strategists, what looks like cheap today may not be cheap enough.

The European secondary loan market was bracing itself for a painful year-end in December as balance-sheet-driven forced selling started to bite.

The Eurasian Development Bank has admitted Belarus, Armenia and Tajikistan. According to the bank’s chairman, Igor Finogenov, the admission of new member states will enhance the wider geographic expansion of the bank’s investment activities. According to the founding documents of the bank – which was established in January 2006 by Kazakhstan and Russia – any country or international organization can apply for membership.

The president of the European Central Bank is at the centre of the global financial storm. He knows his actions are crucial to the survival of the entire global financial system. He gives his most in-depth interview since the collapse of Lehman Brothers to Clive Horwood and Mark Johnson.

When it comes to retaining clients, hedge funds can’t win at the moment.

The CME has hired Mark Thompson as a director. His main task will be to look after the exchange’s hedge fund clients on the US’s eastern seaboard. Thompson, who joins the exchange from UBS, will be based in New York and report to Tina Lemieux, the exchange’s managing director, hedge funds and broker services.

Five years ago, Euromoney was catching up over lunch with a senior figure at a large European bank. Something was troubling him. His private bankers were reporting that emissaries from a large US-based hedge fund had been approaching wealthy European clients telling them that they had unearthed a secret formula to extract regular, risk-free returns from the stock markets.

Irish divestment would be severe test for weakened loan market.

TraderTools has unveiled a compact keyboard, the AI-1, which it says will simplify the trading process. It comes with extra-large, colour-coded keys that should prove extremely useful for those old spot dealers who have delayed their retirement because of the lack of a bonus in 2008. The keyboard can be connected to a wide range of trading platforms. I did suggest to TraderTools that it should launch a version with a ‘mom tick’ button for all the snipers that still exist in the market, but apparently there’s not that great a demand for it any more in spot. In options, though, it’s a different matter.

Hedge funds were ill-prepared for a downturn. Survivors of the shake-out will need to develop their business management skills to cope, says Nick Evans, editor of EuroHedge.

Levels quoted make no market sense whatsoever.

Jeremy Isaacs, the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers’ European business, has set up a boutique investment firm with Roger Nagioff, Lehman’s former head of fixed income. The firm will be called JRJ Investments.

Government support has prevented a systemic run on the banks, but funds are not getting through.

Credit insurer Coface is to launch a financial ratings service in the UK. By using company information, credit insurance expertise and its own expertise, the firm aims to be able to offer spot ratings on a medium-sized company for a starting price of just £4,000. Coface has criticized the draft EU regulation for rating agencies saying that it will increase costs without having any impact on quality.

Biggest names in European securitization research culled.

Even in tough capital markets, open only to the few, it’s still possible to craft good deals, attract new investors, bolster balance sheets and stave off disaster. For all their past sins and excesses, investment banks – the good ones at least – will prove themselves invaluable over the coming 12 months

–38 the average percentage return from IPOs globally.

James Garvey announced his retirement from Goldman Sachs in December 2008. Garvey’s title was chairman of investment-grade financing – a role that was given to him after the firm made syndicate and debt origination a global business run under Jim Esposito a year ago.

Investment bankers out of a job might do well to consider a career in alternative investments in 2009.