The 2007 guide to Portugal: download PDF

Are you fully up to date with developments on Europe's exchange traded fund market? With experts predicting rapid growth in the next few years and demand for the product from both institutional and retail investors intensifying, it is essential for industry professionals to keep ahead of the game.

Latin America is on the move, undergoing an investment and financing boom unprecedented in its history. Latin American companies are acquiring globally, expanding regionally, and investing heavily in productive capacity, and R&D. Infrastructure projects are proliferating throughout the region. These developments reflect the region’s positive economic backdrop and corporate confidence in the economic policies and political stability that have come to characterize most of the region for the past few years.

Do you know your Apportionment from your Binary Options? Your Collateralized Obligations from your Gross Redemption Yields? If not, you needn’t look any further as this exclusive downloadable guide brought to you by Euromoney has over 30 pages of terminology from the financial industry explained.

A degree of blurring and overlapping in the terminology of the banking, insurance and investment management industries has been inevitable. This guide aims to demystify many of those terms, bringing some of the more frequently used technical expressions in all three disciplines into a concise, single volume. We hope it will serve as a useful guide for market participants in all three areas of the financial services sector.

Published in conjunction with: ABN AMRO Private Banking • Banco Urquijo • Bank Delen • Bank Gutmann • Citi Global Wealth Management International • Eurobank EFG Private Banking • Marfi n Popular Bank • Sal Oppenheim • SG Private Banking • Yapi Kredi Private Banking

Published in conjunction with: Global Investment House • SAMBA Financial Group

Repricing in the leveraged loan market means that some CLO managers have been having a field day.

Al Gore, the former vice-president of the US, is the most high-profile figure in the fight to force action to combat global warming. He explains why a new approach to investment is needed, adopts an unusual position in the carbon tax versus cap-and-trade debate, and says banks are generally ahead of the game – but still have a lot more to do.

Bankers with emerging markets backgrounds are taking most of the senior positions in their firms.

Germany’s banking system is in dire straits, and the answer could be a radical one.

"Actually, now’s not a good time"

Have policymakers sent the wrong signal to financial markets?

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Korea’s new found openness to foreigners, as it strives to become a regional financial centre, is about to face its first test.

Baring Asset Management says the fallout from the sub-prime worries in the US is creating buying opportunities in emerging Europe, which investors would do well to take advantage of.

With various trading platforms reporting record volumes, it would be easy to think that foreign exchange had emerged from the wider market turmoil in the rudest of health. But some market participants fear that serious fault lines have been discovered in derivatives.

Lehman Brothers is the latest bank to tap into the growing demand for FX indices (see the weeklyFiX, August 24: "Now is the time for investable FX indices"). Its FX indices (LBFX) track the performance of a long position in G10 currencies against the US dollar. Total returns are calculated daily and incorporate spot and carry return components.

Jerome Cohen has joined Standard Chartered after a 13-year stretch at ABN Amro. In his new role, Cohen will look after Standard Chartered’s complex FX risk team based in Singapore. He will report directly to Richard Leighton, the bank’s global head of FX.

Mortgage securitization by Brazilian banks has huge potential as the mortgage market is still worth only 2.2% of GDP.

According to a study by research and consulting firm Greenwich Associates, hedge funds generated nearly 30% of US fixed-income trading volume last year.

Independent research firms feel the squeeze as fund managers consume more but spend less.

Two approaches to replication leave a gap in the market.

The problems in the SIV sector are not only the result of funding and mark-to-market distress, but also because of sloppy structuring in the first place.

Population-growth and climate trends point to the growing importance of agricultural commodity markets.

A research note from macroeconomic research consultant Capital Economics says that current market turmoil will lead to hedge fund losses but performance won’t be as bad as feared, and investors are unlikely to turn away from the asset class.

A fundamental change to the terms of banks’ financing is likely.

Cash-strapped Belarus has finally made it onto the international ratings map – both Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s have assigned it ratings ahead of a planned debut sovereign Eurobond, which should be launched in the fourth quarter. Moody’s rated the country at its Ba2 level for foreign currency borrowings, and S&P graded it B+.

The Turkish banking regulation and supervision agency (BDDK) has prevented Greece’s Alpha Bank from completing its acquisition of a 50% stake in Alternatifbank.

Moody’s finally upgraded Brazil’s foreign and local currency debt last month to Ba1 from Ba2. The agency also raised the country ceiling to Baa3. This moves brings Moody’s in line with S&P and Fitch, which already have Brazil at BB+ and have positive and stable outlooks on their respective ratings.