The sovereign should deepen its domestic market, not issue local-currency debt abroad

The bankruptcy highlights the CDO market’s continued inability to price in potential credit events.

Concerns about hedge fund positions in the face of Refco’s collapse have been overstated. The real consequence should be that investors are more wary of what they buy into.

The clubby world of private banking is under threat. The UBS/Julius Baer deal shows how tough it will be for foreign banks to break into the market.

Hurricane Katrina has wreaked havoc in numerous ways but insurance companies appear well positioned to deal with the single largest event in the industry's history.

A long-only fund run by traditional asset manager bears little resemblance to the long-only fund run by a hedge fund.

At the IMF/WB meetings the great and the good of the international bond markets gathered to sell their wares to sovereign and supranational issuers. These potential clients remain some of the trophy issuers in debt capital markets, but they are not the kings of issuers they once were.

Competition in clearing and settlement doesn't work. The US shows that only a centralized clearing system can promote vigorous exchange competition.

The Special Administrative Region's regulator has botched its attempt to clean up the thorny issue of pre-deal research.

The suspension by the World Bank of a loan to Ecuador should concern the world's poorer countries

Far from bowing to international pressure, China's renminbi revaluation shows it is firmly in control of its own destiny

Mandated offerings, rather than auctions, offer the best chance for a successful sale

As Kazakhstan prepares for an election, foreign institutions should remember that autocrats are of little benefit to investments in the long run

CFOs are in danger of becoming slaves of the leveraging cycle. It might be in their best interests to resist bankers' blandishments

What are shareholders to do? Sit back and allow the board to make obvious mistakes and lose them money? Or use their rights as shareholders to make the board take notice and maybe make some money? Dysfunctional corporate management has had too easy a ride from institutional investors.

The regulator's guidelines for UK issuers could have far-reaching benefits for Europe's covered bond markets

This month, Euromoney seeks to debunk two of the great myths of the international financial markets.

There should be no false patriotism over whether it is appropriate to finance outside the domestic currency

The German bank has nothing to lose

Online information provider is proving to be a big hit

EU directive misses the mark

Investors bemoan high hedge fund fees

Why an acquisition pays rich dividends

Bank executives are paid well to do a good job. But they should not be rewarded for failure.

Threats to the Arroyo regime in the Philippines raise worries about the quality of likely successors.

Emerging-market countries will enter new territory next year. For the first time since the asset class was established in the late 1980s, these nations will become net creditors in the global economy, according to data from Fitch Ratings.

Like the mariners of ancient Greece lured to their deaths by the beguiling song of the Sirens, international banks increasingly appear mesmerized by the call to invest in China's state-owned banking system.

What does it take for banks and investment banks to excel? Obviously they need customers, products, capital, technology, sound strategy, good people and leadership. That's tough enough to assemble, as is managing the balance between customer business and own-account trading. But the characteristic that bankers themselves talk about most as the one that distinguishes winning firms from the rest is even tougher to define and measure. It is culture.

May's credit market turmoil hit the profits of all four US brokers that reported second-quarter earnings last month, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley especially. There'll be more to come in July when the universal banks, and Merrill Lynch, report. JPMorgan has already warned that its trading results are the worst for some time. But the firm has at least had the chance to offset some of its problems with gains from June's more bullish credit trading environment.

At the end of June, Kenneth Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, said that Chinese investment in the US should not be hampered. "I don't think it can be a one-way street," he argued.