Following a two-year hiatus, Belgium settles trade with Citi.

Funds may take the chance to rebalance but don’t expect a crash.

Spacs increasingly interested in listing on UK's Alternative Investment Market.

One year on, new bonds offer good value.

The bad news for Mexicans is that their country is one of the most prone to earthquakes. But at least the government’s financial resources will not be stretched to the limit should one strike following the launch of a $160 million catastrophe bond last month – the region’s first.

Japanese government-guaranteed issuers such as DBJ and JBIC have been among the largest issuers of debt from Japan. With reform of these agencies in the pipeline, what plans do they have for issuance as interest in the Japanese economy picks up?

The ability of the CDO bid to distort the wider capital markets is significant – and growing.

Given the range of institutions active in CLOs, there is remarkably limited tiering between names.

HSBC’s decision to tell the world in advance when it is will carry out a large FX transaction to pay its non-dollar based shareholders their dividends is transparent. But is it wise?

The dealers at Scottish Widows cemented their reputation as smart traders by winning the Goldman Sachs trading game at the Trade Tech Equities conference for a second year in a row.

“Given all that has happened I’m surprised it wasn’t negative $60 billion” James Gorman, Morgan Stanley In his first public presentation since joining Morgan Stanley in February as president and COO of the global wealth management business, James Gorman outlined how he intended to turn the dwindling arm into a competitive force in the industry.

The global market tremors that have shaken emerging markets might have been expected to cause a few wobbles for the Bank of China IPO, but not a bit of it.

The heyday of the traditional debt capital markets is long gone. Who would have thought that, some six months into the year, it would have taken just a $6 billion share of underwriting to take top place in the US investment-grade corporate bookrunner table? Go back to 2004 and it would have been something like $10 billion. Perhaps a bigger surprise is that this number trails behind the equivalent European league table (€8.5 billion).

Floating rate notes are typically a short-dated bank product traditionally aimed at other banks’ treasuries. Is this the start of a new trend?

Here are the bond issuers that have taken the market by storm over the past 12 months: from the IFC, punching above its weight within the World Bank group with its pioneering work in developing local bond markets, to Bayer’s use of innovative methods to maintain its credit profile while making acquisitions.

KBC Alternative Investment Management has suffered redemptions in its hedge fund assets that reportedly amount to 80%. The Belgian bank says the redemptions were made predominantly in 2005 by large institutional investors that were “no longer entirely satisfied with the performance of the hedge funds they had invested in, and decided to move out of convertible arbitrage and other relative value arbitrage strategies”. It says that the alternatives business had €2 billion in assets at the end of last year.

Bankruptcy of Nici shows vulnerability of small German SME securitizations.

Hong Kong might have cause to celebrate the PWC report: 97% of the funds raised in the Greater China region were raised in the SAR. Yet it also has much to fear. Always an emotional and volatile market, the Hang Seng Index whipsawed its way through early May after global market wobbles.

A busy sporting calendar means a burgeoning expense account for many investment banks.

New Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke received a B+ from economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal, but the Dean of Columbia Business School in New York would probably fail him if students are to be believed.

Is there too much capital trying to find a home?

Saudi regulator leaves a positive legacy for his country’s financial markets.

Of the 8,000 or so hedge funds globally, around 97% are focused on the US and European capital markets. And although opportunities in Asia, Latin America, and central and eastern Europe are being recognized, with the net amount of money flowing into hedge funds that focus on emerging-market investments rising 13% in 2005 according to Hedge Fund Research, not many investors are sufficiently confident to invest in these regions separately.

Until recently, it seemed that the big FX players in FX were happy to leave the retail sector to aggregators, perhaps taking comfort from the prospect that once these had built up a decent size position they would see the business anyway.

Although adoption of an exchange-like structure has been predicted for years, foreign exchange has predominantly been traded over the counter. Could a new initiative by the CME and Reuters finally force the transition through? Lee Oliver reports.

A series of recent reforms has raised hopes that the capital markets will have a bigger role to play in Lebanon’s economic story. But is it another false dawn? James Featherstone reports.

Banks in the Philippines are set for more consolidation as new regulations threaten weaker lenders in a fragmented market. High valuations have dissuaded some from deals, but economic recovery might force them to reconsider. Chris Leahy reports.

Access to collateral is the number one topic of conversation in the CLO market. But if a viable leveraged loan CDS market develops, Christmas will have come early for many players.

Having emerged from a reshuffle in in the Hypo Real Estate Group at the start of the year, Hypo Real Estate Bank International is the most significant institutional response to the Pfandbrief Act yet. The merger of two banks with distinct business models and funding tools has created a real estate financier well equipped to match its hunger for growth, writes Florian Neuhof.

Southern Cross Group is making waves in Latin American private equity, standing out because of its aggressive and sometimes contentious strategy – it only invests in companies in which it has unchallenged control of management – which is bringing it high returns.