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Successful foreign involvement in Brazilian investment banking demands some sort of venture with one of the local firms that dominate the market. Banco Pactual is among the most successful of these and Goldman Sachs seems to have recognized this.

Bank FX traders are up in arms about the plans of EBS, the interdealer FX broker, to allow hedge funds onto the platform. EBS says the pilot phase, which ended last month, was a success. Bank traders say it will create unstable trading conditions, and are beginning to talk about taking their liquidity elsewhere

Germany's Pfandbrief issuers are getting ready for the new law that comes into effect in July. Now they, potential new issuers and an increasingly diverse investor base are focusing on the opportunities that the revised regulatory regime may provide. Will the new legislation help to hasten the internationalisation of the asset class?

Bob Diamond is on the verge of a sporting hat trick. The Barclays Capital CEO's run of success started last October when the Boston Red Sox beat the infamous Curse of the Bambino to win baseball's World Series. They had last won in 1918.

Ukraine is enjoying a huge re-evaluation in the eyes of outsiders, thanks to its Orange Revolution. President Viktor Yushchenko has set out an ambitious and investor-friendly reform programme but it is not clear that the government is capable of implementing it.

With some of the largest and most liquid capital markets in Asia Pacific and yield-hungry local asset managers, Australia would seem a natural port of call for Asian companies. Yet until structural reforms are made and local perceptions about Asian risk change, the expectations gap will not be bridged. Australia will end up the loser.

Having recorded a loss of €1.5 billion in 2001 and been bought out by Permira in 2003, pay-TV operator Premiere has now completed the most successful IPO of a Germany company since 2000

It is hard to see how Paul Wolfowitz will be able to run the World Bank, at least in his first couple of years there. His only supporters seem to be people who think the Bank is in need of a radical shake-up. That, however, is the last thing the Bank needs: it is only now recovering from years of turmoil at the beginning of the tenure of Wolfowitz's predecessor, James Wolfensohn. But Wolfowitz comes from a US administration (where he is currently deputy secretary of defence) that has been very unhappy with the Bank, and he has surely been charged with changing things.

Academic research into delivery failures in the US cash equity and options market support the idea that prior to Reg SHO, market makers deliberately failed to deliver securities in a strategic way.

The US government should reinstate new issuance of the 30-year bond, and sell up to $20 billion by year end. So says Mustafa Chowdhury, head of US rates strategy for Deutsche Bank. "If they weren't to start until the third or fourth quarter this year, $10 billion would be a decent number," he says. Chowdhury is not alone in wanting to see a return of the 30-year bond, issuance of which was suspended in 2001. Strategists and economists across the US have been arguing in favour of it recently, and whether and when the government might return to the 30-year is a standard question whenever administration officials appear at Bond Market Association events. Joshua Bolten, head of the Office of Management and Budget, was most recently on the receiving end at such an event in February. He sidestepped it, stating it wasn't his department.

The lure of EU membership is encouraging Romania's recently elected government to tackle corruption and rationalize the currency and taxation regimes. If foreign investment is any indication, the reforms are working.

Celebrated as Latin America's success story, Chile has cut a path to prosperity that other impoverished, turbulent nations in the region can only envy. While Argentina recovers painfully from its debt default, the world's biggest, and Mexico and Brazil struggle to reform their economies, Chile looks ever closer to leaving behind its emerging-market status and becoming a developed economy. Its budget surplus hit its highest level in eight years in 2004, rising to 2.2% of GDP, and economic growth was almost 6%, the highest in seven years. At the same time, Chile's trade surplus has widened significantly and its country risk continues to diminish.