Buried deep in the announcement of Morgan Stanley’s third-quarter earnings results was a substantial hit from the bank’s newly built hedge funds business.

Rumours that RBC Capital Markets had let go up to 40 sales and trading officials in the US were firmly denied by officials at the Canadian bank, who refused to comment on possible redundancies.

UBS has continued the revamping of its European debt capital markets business instigated by Roberto Isolani – who became head of fixed-income capital markets, for EMEA and APAC, at the start of this year.

Goldman Sachs knows how to spot an opportunity.

Credit Suisse has appointed Michael Fouad Chahine as global head of Islamic banking distribution. The bank is expanding its platform to distribute Shariah-compliant products. Chahine, who will be based in Dubai, will coordinate the existing Islamic banking businesses across Credit Suisse’s investment banking, private banking and asset management divisions to build a distribution centre in Dubai. Chahine has been with Credit Suisse since 2000. Most recently he was head of strategic initiatives in Dubai.

"Once you get a contract, unless you screw it up, you get the renewal"

After the crash, here comes CASH

"Interest rate cuts will be like Viagra – an artificial stimulus that doesn’t cure the underlying problem"

Absolute Capital Management is restructuring five of its equity hedge funds following the departure of co-chief executive officer Florian Homm, which prompted in excess of $100 million of redemption requests for funds with up to $530 million invested in illiquid US stocks quoted on over-the-counter bulletin boards. Chief executive Jonathan Treacher calls the affair "a significant distraction".

Flotation gives big boost to Zagreb market.

The fallout from sub-prime worries in the US has cast a pall over the equity issuance plans of Russian companies in the wake of the volatility that rocked global stock markets over the summer.

The developments will heat up the battle between Qatar and Dubai to become the Middle East’s financial centre.

Lebanon’s economy is crumbling. Its public debt is breaking new world records. It has been teetering on the brink of civil war for the past 10 months. But none of this has stopped Dubai-based Shuaa Capital, one of the Middle East’s leading investment banks, opening a branch this September in Beirut. Why?

A prolonged liquidity contraction is irrevocable, whatever happens in the spuriously autonomous real economy.

Cash management is a hugely attractive business for the banks that have ended up at the top of the consolidation pile, with earnings stability and high returns on equity. And despite reductions in activity because of such developments as the Single Euro Payments Area, new business is emerging in white-labelled products and financial supply chain management. Laurence Neville reports.

As the loan market revives, both buyers and sellers are struggling to establish the upper hand.

More on CLS from The weeklyFiX

The industry collectively did not cover itself in glory during the August/September correction. But there is now a rich environment for a wide range of strategies, says Nick Evans, editor of EuroHedge.

Corporate market emerges from intensive care.

Pfandbrief issuers were notable by their absence as the covered bond market descended into chaos.

Write-downs in the leveraged loan market can raise more questions than they answer.

Opportunities are growing for distressed debt and equity investors in the region despite record levels of private equity fundraising.

The credit crunch has made life especially difficult for the credit portfolio managers charged with hedging commercial banks’ massive corporate loan portfolios. Lack of liquidity in credit default swaps and the closure of the CLO market has greatly reduced their arsenal of hedging tools. It’s not all bad news though. Wild market conditions have underscored the importance of actively hedging loan books and served to justify portfolio management groups’ existence to banks’ top management.

It’s not often that you can walk onto a trading floor and are greeted by England cricket legend Mike Atherton, twinkle toes Mark Ramprakash, champion jockey Frankie Dettori and Olympics silver medallist boxer Amir Khan.

A senior Citi official in Latin America says that Brazil’s leading local banks will remain independent despite rumours that foreign banks, including Citi itself, could be sizing up a potential acquisition. One banker in São Paulo told Euromoney recently that he reckoned that Brazil’s three big local banks – Bradesco, Itaú and Unibanco – could become targets for global banks, such as Citi, as they bid to increase their presence in Latin America’s most important market.

Firms rushing to set up credit opportunity funds might already be too late.

The world’s stock and futures exchanges have benefited handsomely from equity market uncertainty.

Leading players in Argentine capital markets say the government must issue a trailblazing Eurobond or global bond if the markets are to take off. The country’s financial markets are more than 20 times smaller than those of Brazil, despite Brazil’s GDP ($1.17 trillion) being less than five times greater than Argentina’s ($250 billion).

Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, announced in September that his country would expand its petrochemicals industry during the next five years, lifting annual revenues to $100 billion. Chávez said that by 2013, after an investment of $20 billion, the industry will have created 700,000 jobs, 10 times the number employed at state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela. On September 23, the president started a "petrochemicals revolution", which will require 87 plants around the country to produce primary materials and petrochemicals-based products such as fertilizers, plastics and cosmetics. Chávez expects these moves to increase petrochemicals royalties to the government from $340 million this year to $20 billion in 2013.

When China’s leading state-run banks lined up to announce their sub-prime exposure in late August, it was surprising and disconcerting.