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Here's a thought for the hordes of investment bankers twiddling their thumbs at home after the latest round of job cuts. How about spending a lovely spring day in the garden thumbing through a newly published book on personal brand development?

It has long been the preserve of the literati and the chattering classes who might normally look to raise art high above wealth in importance.

Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis is aiming for a goal that no-one has yet achieved. He wants to be the first chief executive of a commercial bank to build a successful, sizeable and sustainable US investment-banking franchise. Plenty have tried - some are still trying - but whether domestic players or European banks they have in the end all had to make one of three choices: to buy, sell, or give up.

All the indications are that Singapore is losing economic ground to immediate regional neighbours and – a bigger, more distant threat – Hong Kong and mainland China to the north. The financial authorities and some investment bankers deny that there is a problem, or at least one that can’t be solved, but ideas for a change of direction are thin on the ground.

Issuer: JetBlue Airways CorpAmount: $158.4 millionLaunched: April 11 2002Lead manager: Morgan Stanley

Dubai is moving fast to develop an international financial centre with strategic links to western markets. Its plans are ambitious but UAE regulatory problems, regional rivalries and simmering political tensions might prove to be stumbling blocks.

Australian banking

Catastrophe bonds

Euromoney's largest ever foreign exchange survey reveals the market's evaluation of the leading banks.

Vulture funds – or distressed-debt investors, as they’d rather be called these days – have never had it so good. The supply of distressed-investment opportunities is at an all-time high. It’s going to stay that way for a while yet – regardless of whether the global economy booms, slumps or just bumps along.

Asset managers face tough choices on technology spending, even as transaction volumes fall and margins shrink. Regulators’ push for T+1 settlement will require expensive upgrades of existing systems or purchase of new ones. Handing over the middle and back office to the revamped custody banks is an alternative. But fund managers are wary of outsourcing.

One analyst is convinced that Bank of America's stock price performance is overdone, and benefits from sleight of hand. In a series of reports published since August last year, David Hendler, financial-services analyst at independent research firm CreditSights, has drawn attention to Bank of America's earnings from derivatives transactions. "We think the key driver of performance has been the company's over-reliance on interest-rate bets that previously went awry and of late have come in the money." Such activity is, he says, a volatile source of earnings. It would also seem to belie Bank of America's executives' table-pounding about the need for consistent earnings and less volatility.