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When Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz paid $1.6 billion to redeem a bond maturing on October 1, one Twitter commentator accused the country’s policymakers of “defaulting on its citizens”.

So the long awaited and much anticipated correction to global markets finally came to pass. Although, if you had been away for an autumn mini-break, you would have missed all the action.

Investment is easy when you can immanentize the eschaton. But even radioactive assets such as uranium can be worth running a Geiger counter over.

Big bankers saying absolutely nothing at all with utter conviction often take centre stage in the theatre of financial politics that is the IMF annual meeting. Most financiers, therefore, tend to snub the official proceedings in favour of meeting clients.

“Phones 4U serves as a timely reminder that even in low default environments, fundamentals do matter”

“Why wouldn’t I buy market share when it is so cheap?”

Talking about the paranormal might get you some interesting looks in your next meeting at a bank. But in tech, talk of angels and unicorns is par for the course.

Private equity professionals have always prided themselves on their business acumen. It takes real smarts to buy an underperforming company and turn it around (or, ahem, just flip it in a rising market).

Last month’s volatility provided a worrying reminder of how illiquid the bond markets have become, how piecemeal has been the response of traders, investors and issuers and how concerned regulators now are

The feelgood factor from the election of Narendra Modi as prime minister does not seem to be translating into better fees for IPO bankers – yet.

Perhaps the most interesting story of the month was the news that Paul Taubman was selling his recently formed corporate finance firm, PJT Partners, to Blackstone, and that Blackstone would spin off its entire advisory arm in to a standalone entity. Ostensibly this is a good thing as Blackstone, which manages over $200 billion of assets in private equity and real estate, is often accused by advisory clients of having conflicts of interest. The new advisory entity will still be 65% owned by Blackstone, so I’m not convinced this new structure answers the conflict of interest criticism. But perhaps I’m missing something.

It has been a difficult year for big European and American banks. But then come to think of it, none of the years since the demise of Lehman Brothers in 2008 have been easy for them. That makes six full years that banks have been in the doghouse. In the first few following the crisis, they were derided as greedy, evil rogues who had nearly crippled the global economy.