Search results for

Portugal’s economy is in great shape, unemployment is low by European standards and government borrowing requirements are steadily falling. That is the good news. Less auspicious is the fact that Portugal is saddled with structural imbalances and competitiveness vis-à-vis other economies with relatively low labour costs is steadily deteriorating.

Accounting for some 90% of dealer-to-customer trading in US government securities, TradeWeb is the most successful internet bond dealership yet established.

They started by trying to update the crude minimum capital requirements for international banking established in 1988. But the Basel Committee have been seduced by a new idea: let banks regulate themselves and get the market to police the banking system. Can we rely on the models banks use to calculate their capital? And do the regulators really understand what the banks are up to?

In the past Euromoney’s country risk ratings have been reliable lead indicators of dips and surges in the world’s economic cycle. Six months ago the global economy looked in fine fettle, underpinned by favourable commodity prices and strong growth in developed countries. Financial markets are fearful this is about to change. Analysts’ forecasts for economic performance are noticeably lower than in September’s survey. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Research by Damon Ivanics and Andrew Newby

One of the great gainers from falling global interest rates will be emerging market financial assets - though not everywhere. I've just visited one emerging market that should outperform this year: Brazil.

On January 30, UK water regulator Philip Fletcher finally gave the go-ahead to Glas Cymru's purchase of the assets of Welsh Water, in exchange for assuming £1.8 billion of the debt of Welsh Water's owner, utilities group Hyder. Glas Cymru - "the people's company" is to have what amounts to mutual status and become fully debt financed. Technically, it will be owned by nobody but guaranteed by 200 members - ranging from Welsh dignitaries to hospitals - whose individual personal liability will be capped at £1.

A joint venture that can only be described as a success, Nikko Salomon Smith Barney is a rare creature, and other banks in Japan are green with envy.

The existence of the Sparkassen and Landesbanken is derived from their public mission, but, when everything else is being privatized, why should banks be an exception.

Berlin has not quite finished growing together, though it's well on the way to being rebuilt, with the near-completion of the Potsdamer Platz project.

In the first two months of this year there has been a dramatic reconfiguration of market variables in the US, including interest rates, credit spreads and the yield curve. Both a result of and contributing to these seismic shifts in the financial landscape has been business completed by mortgage portfolios to hedge negative convexity. Dealers have been rocked on their feet by the scale of volatility buying, and the fear that if rates back up, the mortgage holders will unwind the positions and sell convexity, making any general market sell-off much more severe than would otherwise be the case.

Merrill Lynch is reshuffling its European investment banking division to create a new structured credit unit.

Allen Wheat must sometimes wish he had never done his big merger. CSFB's chief executive officer was the driving force behind last year's acquisition of Donaldson, Lufkin&Jenrette, widely adjudged one of the least logical deals of the year.