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People in finance aren't normally shy about winning prizes. But the inaugural Asian Brokers Awards dinner had many ducking for cover - such was the fear of being nominated for and winning gongs like the "Ted Turner Award for humility" - for the region's most arrogant fund manager - and the "Leaving Las Vegas Award" - for the broker most famed for being slumped over bars nursing double scotches in the name of strengthening client relationships.

Fixed-income investing isn't an area normally associated with soul searching. can still wrongfoot us all, though. The Pimco managing director's March Investment Outlook takes a moment out from analysis of the bond markets to conduct a pensive and very personal meditation on religion, war and the author's mortality, with the help of a few carefully chosen quotations.

Roberto Junguito, finance minister of Colombia, had a good Inter-American Development Bank meeting in Milan. He secured hefty funding commitments from the IADB as well as from Andean development bank, Corporación Andina de Fomento. To top it off, he received the Euromoney award for economic achievement in the Andes from the president of CAF, Enrique García who says Hunguito is a determined negotiator. García should know: CAF has just promised Colombia $3.5 billion. Hunguito modestly shared his award with his young team. "When I was minister of finance in the 1980s, I worked with their parents," he joked.

Commodities are on a roll as equities stumble and bonds reach their peak. But can commodity-based investments offer value for the long term as well as offering temporary relief to embattled portfolios?

The lack of real-time information has always meant that trading CDOs has never been for the faint of heart. Goldman Sachs led the charge to improve the situation last summer by making data on all its deals available to investors on data service provider Intex. Three other underwriters have followed suit.

"Guess who I had in the back of my cab," is a refrain familiar to Londoners. "Not an investment banker," might now be an appropriate response.

Pension fund trustees can find equity derivatives confusing. At the NAPF conference in Edinburgh last month a baffled but brave trustee stood up to ask how he could cut through the "black art and mumbo jumbo" of these instruments.

If there is one thing that emerging-market investors hate as much as SDRM, it is exit consents.

The new world order, established after the fall of communism in Russia and eastern Europe, is set to shatter. Global leadership by the US confronting the USSR was succeeded by US leadership flying solo. Now comes fragmentation. The US might be the most powerful nation but over the next few years its role will be contested by China, the EU, South Korea and even Japan. This implies a much higher risk premium for financial assets.

The switch in hedge fund strategies away from equities has brought new competition to prime brokerage. But what does it amount to in terms of bottom lines?

Turkish banks have become the debt-raising branch of the government. Estimates suggest that between 40% and 50% of the total assets of the banking system are treasury bonds denominated in Turkish lira or Eurobonds. This ratio is in reality larger than it appears because the bulk of banks' assets are not cash but real estate and shares in non-bank affiliates. Loans to businesses constitute no more than 15% to 20% of assets, according to Global, an Istanbul-based securities company.