In most normal markets, when enough investors acknowledge the existence of a bubble, it will burst, so why has China’s ‘A’ share market, arguably the world’s most obvious stock market bubble, not popped yet?

After years on the second tier of economic performance, Germany is ready for a return to the big time.

Russia is equally capable of fatally deterring and irresistibly attracting investors, as two recent big bank IPOs showed.

The real action in debt capital markets has moved off the public stage.

More efficiency in clearing will help increase the importance of Europe’s equity markets.

Is a high level of consolidation in the FX market sustainable? And what of the hundreds of banks that fall outside the bulge bracket?

The ultimate local market, real estate is also open to being globalized as an asset class. Great strides have been made in doing this and there’s more to come.

Whatever the conclusion of the bid war for ABN Amro, it will put the Dutch bank’s prize Brazilian asset, Banco Real, into the ring.

Slackening underwriting standards in loans that back a burgeoning CDO market? It all sounds horribly familiar.

Can you afford to invest in Cuba’s London Club NPLs and maybe wait 20 years for a restructuring? Perhaps not, but there are other potential winning bets on the wilder shores of the emerging markets.

Chinese regulators now want the largest state-owned firms to list at home, leaving smaller private companies to trade in Hong Kong. But these might be the best Chinese companies and losing them may be a big mistake.

One man, one vision might be a line from a naff Queen song but it neatly encapsulates the role Herbert Stepic has played in building Raiffeisen International into one of the strongest banking franchises in Europe.

ABN merger may give global scale, but at what cost to the businesses that have driven the UK bank forward?

Recent setbacks will not hold back the world’s second-largest economy’s growing globalization.

Bankers’ growing interest in environment-friendly financial opportunities can only be a good thing – whatever their motivation.

Too many banks are chasing too few fees.

The sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US will feed through to mortgage markets elsewhere as share prices plummet and borrowing costs soar.

In recent years success in the financial services industry has been predicated on two main strategies: first, taking on significant if not massive proprietary risk, a strategy as old as the hills; second, underwriting risk positions and using the capital markets to exit. This is an even more well-established feature of the most successful investment banking operations.

Big hires, new local offices and investment in a specialist hedge fund show the US firm is getting serious about the emerging markets.

Success in investment banking has always depended on relationships and connections, as well as expertise.

Latin America’s financial community should have a spring in its step when it gathers in Guatemala later this month for the Inter-American Development Bank’s annual meeting. The region is buoyant and, aside from concerns about the political direction of a handful of countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, the future appears bright.

Blackstone used a rapid-fire trading-style approach in its recent record-breaking LBO. But can we expect disasters comparable to those of the early 1990s?

Some dealers have already suffered from the widening of spreads on the ABX index. Will the problems spread?

Sberbank rights issue leaves the market dazed and confused.

In their rush to capitalize on infrastructure privatizations, lenders are pushing their risk criteria to the limit.

It might be cause for concern rather than enthusiasm when a hedge fund goes for a stock market listing.

It’s best for investors to be cautious and not leap aboard a fad bandwagon.

The region’s equity markets are beginning to outshine debt and M&A.

The growing number of investors wanting to short the commercial property market is good news for property derivatives.

Regulatory arbitrage will to take a new form once bankers can get their heads around Basle II.