Euromoney’s annual survey invites investors to rate the quality of bank research on Middle Eastern equity and debt bearing in mind overall performance and accuracy.

Bank analysts and equity investors give their opinions on which companies they think are the best by the individual company sectors.

"It’s a minor irritation. We’ve always thought Moody’s was shit, but S&P has now proved it’s just as shit too"

Banks profit on originate and hold; Expectations ‘ahead of themselves’

Air Liquide attracts new investors; More deals to follow

"Deals are being oversubscribed by anything ranging from three to four times up to 15 times – and these are for small $100 million deals up to multibillion dollar deals"

Fine wine shows an attractive Sharpe ratio; Investors must be wary on valuations

QE distorts currency trading; Returns exist, but in limited pairs

First international sovereign issue for 90 years; Aftermarket performance disappoints

Signs of life driven by blocks; Rise in bookrunners ‘frustrating’

$5 billion under management; Employs advisers and third-party fund manager

NBAD announces six-month waiver; Rules could promote federal borrowing

M&A activity drops after introduction; Cade’s response faster than predicted

Priced to support post-deal performance; Mexican equity story outshines Brazil’s

Bonds rise on announcement; Recovery-note holdouts threaten resolution

Nine-year tenure ends; Maliki seen to be consolidating power

More issuance expected; Indonesia performance remains lacklustre

More issuance likely from PDVSA; Currency appreciation might force devaluation

Depository law proves final hurdle; OFZ spreads tighten on foreign buying

Veteran lured away from Deutsche; Signals BAML ramping up effort in Asia

An investment bank wouldn’t be doing its job if it didn’t advise its clients on where they could potentially make money, and earn a fee from doing so.

Pension plans are on the verge of a big move into riskier, illiquid investments to deliver promised returns; they might be better advised to curtail those promises.

It’s never quiet in UK banking these days. In a fitting episode of handbags at dawn, Ana Botín, the chief executive of Santander UK, reneged on an agreement to buy 316 branches from RBS. The provisional sale agreement had been signed in the summer of 2010 when António Horta-Osório was running Santander UK. Santander wanted to expand its penetration of the small-business market and was prepared to pay £1.65 billion to do so.

Barclays shows advantage of scale; Failure of RBS disposal too late for NBNK

When BNP Paribas announced its adaptation plan last year the corporate and investment banking unit was squarely in the firing line. Revenues are down but profitability is resilient – something that CIB head Alain Papiasse argues makes it better positioned than its peers.

The BBA is holding worthy-sounding debates on regaining trust. Instead they should be following an example from 16th-century Germany.

Padraic Fallon, the chairman and editor-in-chief of Euromoney Institutional Investor, was the person who highlighted to me the importance of being first. "Write something new, Abigail," he would say. "Always try to be first with your angle or story. Go out and meet new people."

Sometimes, I am pleased to say, I get there before others. Those who are successful normally spot signals before they become trends and navigate accordingly. I can think of many examples: Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, who realized people would pay £2.50 for a half decent cup of coffee; Steve Jobs, who saw that consumers wanted design as well as functionality; and even Barack Obama, who recognized in 2008 that the US public were desperate for change. Of course, Obama now faces a difficult re-election battle as it is not clear his tenure delivered the change that he promised.

If there was ever any doubt about who Wall Street wants in the White House, a cursory glance at the top contributors to the campaigns of president Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney clears that up in a hurry. It might even make the president regret being quite so harsh on a group who backed him pretty heavily (for a Democrat) when he was first elected president after a campaign during which he is thought to have broken the world record for saying: "Yes we can".

Goldman Sachs insiders were relieved by the dearth of damning allegations in Greg Smith’s tell-all book about his time at the firm.