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Bumper results produced by many FX units are likely to prove a sideshow in what will be a year of write-downs and general value destruction.

Kenan Altunis, global head of sales at UniCredit, has struck lucky and won a big lottery held on Long Island, New York. Altunis, who will receive $1 million a year for life, says he is slightly embarrassed by his slice of good fortune. He tells Euromoney that he will donate a portion of his annual windfall to charity and that he is looking into the possibility of supporting an orphanage in Iraq.

Chi-X has announced that it is bringing its multilateral electronic equities trading platform to Japan, placing itself in direct competition with the oft-criticised Tokyo Stock Exchange.

In the next few weeks, Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, will decide whether to voluntarily take his country into default on up to $10.2 billion of external sovereign debt, equivalent to 25% of GDP. As the international community holds it breath, those close to the government are more philosophical. "Correa runs as a 21st-century socialist government. He wants to continue sending the message to the people that the poor come before debt," says Antonio Acosta Espinosa, president at Banco Pichincha, the leading bank in Ecuador. "This default threat does exactly that – sends a clear political message to his supporters. I personally think it is a political strategy and that payments will resume in the coming weeks, but I’m expecting that some international court will analyse the legality of some tranches of the external debt." A Moody’s report that downgraded Ecuador’s foreign currency bond rating to Caa1 agrees that the government’s motivation is political and ideological. On November 14, Correa announced that Ecuador would no longer pay the 12% coupon totalling $31 million on its 2012 global bond. Now the government says it is going to make use of the 30-day grace period to decide its strategy. By December 15, Correa will have decided "if we will keep paying or go the courts".

The past few months have been significant for Austrian exchange Wiener Börse’s attempts to position itself as the prime conduit for portfolio investment in central and eastern Europe. In a notable run it has managed to secure majority control of three exchanges in the region. Most recently, it signed an agreement in November to acquire a 92.4% stake in the Prague Stock Exchange, one of the largest in central and eastern Europe, with a market capitalization of about €40 billion.

As was widely expected, the government in Kazakhstan has stepped in to support the central Asian republic’s embattled banking sector. Since the onset of the global credit crunch last August, Kazakh banks have found themselves under severe pressure given the choking off of cheap funding from abroad, which helped to finance the rapid expansion of branch networks and lending portfolios at home. At the same time the domestic economic environment has deteriorated rapidly, with GDP this year expected to come in at 4.5% – less than half the 10% average annual growth levels seen since the start of the decade. The straitened economic circumstances have also led to a sharp increase in bad debt levels. While pre-credit crunch non-performing loans were in the range of 1.5% to 3% they have now jumped to 7% to 8% although some observers believe the true figure is as high as 15%.

Kurt Baker, head of Morgan Stanley’s prime brokerage arm in Asia, has left the company. Morgan Stanley chief executive John Mack announced in October that the prime brokerage business would be reassessed. Hedge funds’ sentiments towards prime brokers in the current climate were expressed in Clontarf Capital’s November newsletter. "For many hedge funds, particularly those with assets below $300 million, it is clear that while they may have thought they had a loving relationship with their prime broker, they were, in effect, being used all along," says the newsletter. "The party is firmly over for many funds, and the prime broker is one more adversary to deal with in what feels like a multi-pronged attack (from markets, investors and regulators, as well as other funds)."

Eastern Europeans think it could be a haven in troubled times.

Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, has taken measures to counter the effects of decreasing petro-dollars. The president has reduced his support to foreign allies and is poised to make deeper cuts at home and abroad as oil prices plunge.

Fertilizer maker CF Industries is looking to invest $1 billion to develop petrochemicals plants in Peru. The company plans to build two plants – one producing ammonia and one urea – the company’s president announced at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum, attended last month by leaders from 21 Pacific Rim economies. Peru is working to persuade foreign companies to invest billions of dollars to develop petrochemicals plants that can utilize products coming from Peru’s Camisea gas field.

Uncertainty over bridge loans for infrastructure projects.