One banker contrives a metaphor to defend the universal banking model. If you set two BMW 5 Series cars to race around a track and only one makes it back, that tells you that one of the drivers made a mistake, not that the BMW is a bad car. So don’t junk universal banking, through a forced separation into utility banking, comprising retail deposit-taking and commercial lending, away from trading in securities, just to punish the mistakes of poor chief executives who drove their banks into a wall in the reckless pursuit of profits in complex instruments that they didn’t understand, using leveraged proprietary risk-taking they couldn’t control.

Markets must soon learn not to react to agency sabre-rattling.

The emerging market equity boom might turn out to be leverage-fuelled.

International banks might not get the rich pickings they crave in the People’s Republic.

Regulators in Berlin have yet to pull off the confidence trick of their US and UK counterparts.

The latest SIV auction has proved a welcome fillip for the structured finance market.

Tarp, Talf, PPIP – what’s an investor to make of it?

Goldman Sachs received plaudits following its first-quarter results. It beat all estimates when it posted earnings of $1.8 billion, equating to $3.39 a share, compared with expectations of $1.80.

Do CDS spreads for Brazil and Mexico adequately reflect their relative economic health?

Rating agency treatment of distressed buybacks will make it even harder to salvage value in the battered loan market.

The US Treasury has criticized banks for reducing lending after it bailed them out. The banks say they are doing their best and want to pay government capital back. A row is brewing.

The sale of Pactual could be the first of many disposals of emerging markets assets by banks desperate to raise capital.

Nigerian controls endanger foreign investment in Africa as a whole.

Eddie George’s skills are missed now more than ever.

Don’t just blame the locals: these are age-old derivatives-based losses.

Saudi debt markets are set for a resilient year, with the promise of more to come.

New UBS chairman and chief executive show the pressure the country’s banking system is under.

With the authorities throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the markets, they need to make sure that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.

Some of the smartest people in investment banking are seizing a unique opportunity to set up boutiques.

Just when government bond investors were growing concerned at fast-deteriorating public finances and huge new supply of bonds to pay for stimulus plans and financial system bailouts, along came a new group of buyers to cap rising yields. Politicians and policymakers know they need to restore confidence to the markets, and central bank quantitative easing, creating money to buy government bonds, certainly looks like a confidence trick.

If China’s capital markets are to mobilize funds a simpler, more coordinated regulatory system is imperative.

A code of conduct for credit rating agencies does nothing to deal with their inherent conflicts of interest.

Diversified payment rights issuance offers an alternative to dollar funding.

UAE loan buys time and gives options – but which to take?

Global firms are once again rolling back their commitment to Asia. Will they never learn?

What good is abundant liquidity unless it flows into the wider economy?

Regulators see a chance to hammer hedge funds and are determined to take it.

If you are going to throw money at a problem, throw it at the right problem.

BNDES spending can only prop up the economy for so long.

Emerging Europe needs a coordinated bank bailout – and fast.