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Becoming the world's first stockmarket to fall victim to globalization might not seem like much of an honour. But Argentina may find in years to come that the rapid decline of its bolsa proved a blessing in disguise. Now is the time for the government to heed the sentiments of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and shed no tears for its dying stockmarket. It will do better to embrace the new reality and plug the country into what finance secretary Daniel Marx calls "the global pool of liquidity".

Chilean Finance Minister

Is Japan heading back into recession? The news out of the country's Ministry of Finance is that Japan's national output probably fell in the last quarter of 1999, after shrinking by 1% in the third quarter. Technically that's a recession. Will this new downturn continue and what does it mean for the Nikkei and the yen? You can answer these questions if you understand the plate-shift movements taking place under the surface of Japan's seemingly stagnant economy.

Egyptian Banking

Indian M&A

Online Equity Trading

Asian Brokers

Member of the managing board,Ceska Sporitelna

Sex and scandal: it's just life as usual in Paul Kilduff's new financial thriller, The Dealer. Kilduff's second novel is set in the City, amid a multi-billion-pound takeover of a bank that unearths a handful of characters related through a web of corruption.

Brokers in Buenos Aires are in despair. Delistings by foreign companies of their Argentine subsidiaries have cut the market in half and trading has dwindled to a fraction. Despite this, a badly needed restructuring of the bolsa is being held up by conservatives who fear increased competition. While they argue, Argentine investors are clicking their mice and buying US mutual funds. Local companies are voting with their feet and listing on Nasdaq. By the time the traditionalists come to their senses the market could be dead.

Why did Deutsche Bank gut Bankers Trust’s richest business – US bonds – and hire a new team from Merrill Lynch? Surely that’s no way to establish a new presence in North America. But such criticism ignores the tribalism that rules these amalgamated global banks, and maybe it was the quickest way to forge team loyalty.

It's clear why Vodafone conquered Mannesmann. Vodafone won because it paid to win, using its powerful stock. Its shareholders supported its share price and thereby its bid because they believed its story: that big is best in the globalizing telecoms game. And they feared failure might burst the telecoms bubble. What's less understood is how Mannesmann lost. It gave away the early momentum through bungling, suffered splits in its defence advisory team, and came within an inch of winning the hand of a French rescuer, only to hesitate. Klaus Esser made Mannesmann a top company, but his risk-taking triggered this contest and shaped its outcome. We also reveal the battle that raged beneath the surface between Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley during the biggest hostile takeover of all time.