Introducing Gold ATMs, Chanel bullion replica clutches, and reopening JPM gold vaults.

Pension funds are slashing their allocations to equities and reorienting their portfolios to more accurately match liabilities. Strategically that makes sense. Tactically it smacks of buying at the top and it is already creating distortions in markets.

"It’s getting to the point where clients are looking not at which banks would be good to run the deal but which will lie to them best"

The proposition that if you build an investment banking franchise clients will come was severely tested in the third quarter. Sales and trading revenues were weak for most dealers, though with wide variance between big firms. Results were particularly poor for banks such as Morgan Stanley and UBS that had been rebuilding their investment banking franchises on the assumption that an aggressive push into flow business lines would result in increased client volumes.

A stand against foreclosures might be a vote winner but it has deleterious economic consequences.

The Irish government must push through an austerity budget and stabilize its finances before returning to the capital markets next June. It hopes to resolve its banking system and property sector problems through early recognition of losses. If this bold experiment fails, the country might yet be a test case for euro sovereign debt rescheduling.

"We don’t think there are cases where people have been evicted out of homes where they shouldn’t have been"

Being a fixed-income investor in Europe just got a whole lot trickier.

Could the villain of the piece yet have a hero’s role to play? Last month, Angelo Mozilo, former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, paid a $22.5 million penalty and disgorged $45 million of what the SEC calls "ill-gotten gains" to settle disclosure violation and insider trading charges. It is the largest sum ever paid by a public company executive in an SEC settlement. Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC enforcement division, says: "Mozilo’s record penalty is the fitting outcome for a corporate executive who deliberately disregarded his duties to investors by concealing what he saw from inside the executive suite – a looming disaster." The money will be returned to investors harmed in Countrywide’s collapse.

These are sober times in Ireland, as the nation, so well known for its bonhomie, seems somewhat underwhelmed after the slide of its economic wellbeing. This was perfectly illustrated when Euromoney calls into visit a source at the Bank of Ireland in Dublin recently. It’s the final round of the Ryder Cup, and the source whisks Euromoney off to a pub down the road from its Baggot Street headquarters. The result hangs in the balance right down to the last pairing, which contains the Irishman, Graham McDowell. Expecting pints of Guinness and much boisterousness, it feels more like an Irish wake, but with glasses of water and herbal tea. It’s a long way from the last Ryder Cup held in Europe, at Ireland’s lavish K Club, when it was all champagne, and Ireland’s then hero Darren Clarke necked a pint of Guinness for the TV cameras. When McDowell secures victory for Europe, there’s some polite clapping and then bankers drift out onto the street, as the autumn leaves begin to fall.

The confirmation of disappointing third-quarter sales and trading revenues for most banks set the stage for a crucial fourth-quarter push by investment bankers – the push to maximize their own bonus payments.

There’s rarely been a better time to be a mortgage banker in the US.

Senior RMBS bondholders will pay the price from US mortgage chaos.

The EU’s plans to tighten measures to prevent eurozone instability and discipline transgressors are admirable in theory. But implementation will be a tough task and is not in any case achievable until 2013.

In the battle to rebuild war-torn Afghanistan, Kabulbank inserted itself as a key player, building the country’s largest deposit base and becoming the payment agent for many government enterprises. But a run on the bank in August led to the ousting of colourful poker-playing bank owner Sherkhan Farnood. What does this mean for the country’s banking sector? Eric Ellis reports.

Hungary’s foreign banks are adamant that they’re in for the long haul. But with a deeply hostile government, a hefty tax bill in the offing and huge mortgage portfolios sinking ever further underwater, is their position sustainable? Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker reports.

Chinese appetite for Russian risk remains relatively weak; Rare IT flotation on the way in London

Swiss bank announces key hires; Next step in recovery from Pactual sale

Continued economic growth is under threat from a backlog in infrastructure development. Obstacles to foreign and domestic financing of the sector urgently need to be overcome. Rob Dwyer reports.

There has always been something rather tacky about the financial market’s habit of naming bond markets for borrowers issuing in a foreign country by picking the most stereotypical associations. Thus bonds marketed by foreign issuers in Japanese yen are samurais, Australian dollar bonds are kangaroos and so on. Euromoney reckons that the names evoke a less than progressive attitude towards the internationalization of markets.

In September and October a torrent of tightly priced Asian bond deals pushed established investors along the yield curve and swept in new names. The more exotic the deal, the more investors flocked to it. But there are concerns that too much money is flowing into Asia. Lawrence White reports.

The easy environment is pushing asset prices in Latin America to boiling point.

Deal flow to continue into Q1; Strong foreign capital inflows in Brazil

Development bank crowds out private sector; But has vital role in infrastructure development

Investors should diversify into developed market companies with high emerging markets exposures to capture these economies’ growth.

Return to positive growth in 2011; Credit risk spreads down, equity investor interest up

Latin America’s debt market is setting new benchmarks, demonstrating the region’s rapid progress. But are things going too fast? Sudip Roy reports.

Pan-African group restructures operations; Investment unit to trade 17 African currencies

A merger between the companies that own the Australian and Singapore exchanges is only a first step towards an integrated market.

Year-end markets boom continues; JPMorgan reaches the top