With returns of 27% over the past 12 months, vintage champagne investment is not to be sniffed at. The Liv-ex Champagne 25 index to the end of June outperformed even the leading fine wine index, the Liv-ex 100, which returned 8.5%. Since January 2004, the champers index has returned 138%. The best-performing champagnes, such as Krug, Cristal and Dom Perignon from the acclaimed 1996 vintage, are up by as much as 56% since last June. The rise in price is attributed to new wealth and new markets.

As one Euromoney reader put it: “Macro has had more comebacks than Lazarus.” But is the strategy back to stay? – at least for three or so years, say managers.

FXCM posts strong second-quarter revenues.

Former GMAC chief executive Eric Feldstein has joined $13 billion hedge fund Eton Park as CFO; Jamil Baz, portfolio manager for Pimco’s global multi-asset fund, joins GLG as chief investment strategist; KKR has hired William Sonneborn, president and COO of TCW, to develop its asset management business.

Professional cycling is a sport that has a long association with doping. In reality, it is probably no worse than any other and its fans will tell you it has done more to clean its tarnished image than those sports that are not regarded with such suspicion.

"Putting an idiot in a suit doesn’t make him a private banker"

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation recently issued a statement laying the foundations for the regulation of a US covered bond market, specifically concerning the preferred treatment of bondholders in the event of an issuer default.

In 2004 Santander had looked at ABN Amro as an entire business but decided it was not interested in a deal. Botín told his board at the time that the only parts of ABN that Santander might be interested in were its Brazil and Italy operations.

Finance sector ECM Banks and agencies raised $108.5 billion via 81 deals globally in the second quarter of 2008, up from $32.9 billion via 49 deals in the first quarter of the year, and year-to-date issuance already surpasses the total amount raised in 2007 ($100.8 billion). ECM issuance by financial sector issuers accounted for 42% of all global issuance in the second quarter and 26% in the first quarter. Royal Bank of Scotland’s $24.3 billion rights issue via Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and RBS is the largest ECM deal on record.

The bad news has been piling up at HBOS, but we shouldn’t call in the movers just yet.

The Merrill chief’s honeymoon is over. The question now is whether he’s guilty of misjudgment or mismanagement.

The strong performance of BBVA and Santander can’t mask the impact of a looming housing crash on domestic institutions.

Family disputes in Asian listed companies have an unfortunate propensity to boil over unresolved into the public arena, raising important corporate governance issues.

HBOS is struggling. That’s why its stock price is depressed and its rights issue came close to disaster.

Panic over the state of Fannie and Freddie may have been overplayed, but more transparency over their role in US housing should be welcomed.

The audience fell silent as they listened to his advice: don’t buy things you don’t understand; if you wouldn’t buy something, don’t sell it to anyone else; and don’t lend money to customers you don’t know.

Markets have changed and so will the terms for Mexico’s next round of toll road financing.

The role of the European Central Bank as the saviour of the European securitization market over the last year is not even up for debate.

Governments should give investors what they need and issue inflation-linked bonds.

In-house hedge funds look to have been a costly mistake for investment banks. Far better, it seems, is to take stakes in independent ones.

How will the baby boomers that will come onto the Middle East’s job market over the next 10 years be employed?

Investors say the Middle East is becoming an interesting new territory for hedge fund managers, as opportunities in the region increase.

IPO ends long struggle for the gambling tycoon.

It’s a year since the credit crunch began and still there is no end in sight to the bloodletting. Alex Chambers looks at the prospects for bankers facing this unprecedented downturn as traditional alternative employment avenues, such as hedge funds, struggle to pick up the slack.

The financing for Peru’s biggest ever project is in the final stages after a $3.8 billion package was signed last month.

Mark Hillery has apparently left hedge fund Tudor. There is no indication whether his departure is permanent or a sabbatical. Meanwhile, the firm has hired Andrew Bound from Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Bound left GSAM in May and is believed to be starting at the fund in August.

Barclays Capital has confirmed that Adrian McGowan is joining as managing director and head of foreign exchange trading, Asia-Pacific, from Deutsche Bank. It has also promoted Lutfey Siddiqi, its managing director and Asia-Pacific head of corporate FX and risk advisory, who now has additional management responsibility for distribution of the full suite of flow and structured FX products across corporate and investor clients in Asia-Pacific. Dean Tonkin, currently head of FX trading, Japan, and regional head of FX forwards, has also assumed additional regional responsibility for FX spot trading and FX proprietary trading.

The effects of the credit crunch have spread across all areas of finance, affecting even the world’s most liquid market: swaps in euros. People still want to do business, but banks need to reorder their balance sheets and regain confidence. And that could take a long time.

These tongue-in-cheek versions of common financial parlance are particularly insightful given recent market events.