Single women interested in meeting "high adrenaline guys who thrive on excitement, adventure and the finer things the world has to offer" now need look no further than traderdater .com, the online dating site recently launched by Trader magazine, a lifestyle magazine aimed at traders and hedge fund managers.

Kumho Tire's IPO was oversubscribed in both the London and Seoul markets when the tyre manufacturer launched the first simultaneous dual listing by a Korean company

Chairman, CEO and CIO, US Global Investors

Since taking office in 2003, Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been the man to watch in Latin America, bringing the region's largest economy unprecedented stability and silencing fears that the former steel worker would be unable to handle the country's huge foreign debt. This year, though, Lula faces one of the biggest challenges to his pro-market credentials: the task of pushing an initiative through congress to give the central bank autonomy.

Having had serial relationships with three global investment banking houses, all of which deals unravelled, Thai investment bank Phatra Securities can be forgiven for wanting to go it alone. Although the firm still enjoys good relations with one ex-partner, the new-found independence clearly suits its style.

New approaches to managing currency funds have proliferated as demand holds up from investors disillusioned by poor performance in other asset classes. But could the market be getting saturated?

The opening of German financial markets to true securitization looks set to relieve banks of badly performing loans, add new capital to the mortgage markets and revolutionize the financing of Mittelstand companies.

In the global automotive sector over the past three months, investors have focused on the problems facing GM and Ford.

Khathar hunnu bhanda marhu ramro. Or in English: "It is better to die than live a coward." That's the motto of the Brigade of Gurkhas, as London financial sector workers are about to find out.

Virtually unknown outside its native Malaysia, investment bank Commerce International Merchant Bankers has rapidly consolidated its domestic dominance. Running out of room to grow, the firm is acquiring Singapore stockbroker GK Goh in its first big step to create a regional investment banking force. The ambition is evident and so are the challenges.

CEO, Greenpark Capital