Emerging-market and convergence investors have long since stopped buying hard-currency debt from the new European countries after their spreads converged with EU government levels, but the region's local-currency debt is attracting ever more inflows. Kathryn Wells reports on where the best opportunities lie

A new family of volatility indices that will track the Dax, Stoxx, and SMI equity indices will launch this September.

Improved fundamentals have undoubtedly fuelled the emerging-market debt boom. But that's by no means the whole story. Excess liquidity might be forcing values unjustifiably high, and hedge fund and credit derivative strategies are vulnerable to an overdue yield-curve readjustment.

Real estate has traditionally been a localized business. Now developers are considering the costs and benefits of moving out of the comfort zone and going international, as Helena Keers reports.

You did your first dollar bond since the default in July. What was the strategy behind that?

Latin nations' equity and debt markets are seeing greater issuance activity

Strategic buyers are getting increasingly bullish about M&A opportunities. So far this year, though, they haven't stolen any of the thunder of financial sponsors

As a new president takes office in Iran and deadlock hits talks with the European Union over Tehran's controversial nuclear programme, investors are pondering whether they should enter an economy that might soon be subject to sanctions.

The imminent liberalization of Gazprom share ownership rules will introduce the world's biggest energy company to the world's biggest investors. But is Gazprom ready for the world, or the world for Gazprom?

News of an election is already perking up the Germany economy. If a centre-right coalition wins, as seems likely, expect yet more improvement

Grigorii Marchenko, chief executive of Halyk Bank and former governor of Kazakhstan's central bank, talks to Euromoney about bank capitalization, the development of consumer banking products, Kazakhstan's economic policy and the country's regional role.

This month, Euromoney seeks to debunk two of the great myths of the international financial markets.

The suspension by the World Bank of a loan to Ecuador should concern the world's poorer countries

What are shareholders to do? Sit back and allow the board to make obvious mistakes and lose them money? Or use their rights as shareholders to make the board take notice and maybe make some money? Dysfunctional corporate management has had too easy a ride from institutional investors.

As Kazakhstan prepares for an election, foreign institutions should remember that autocrats are of little benefit to investments in the long run

Far from bowing to international pressure, China's renminbi revaluation shows it is firmly in control of its own destiny

The regulator's guidelines for UK issuers could have far-reaching benefits for Europe's covered bond markets

CFOs are in danger of becoming slaves of the leveraging cycle. It might be in their best interests to resist bankers' blandishments

Mandated offerings, rather than auctions, offer the best chance for a successful sale

Deep in political crisis, president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is ill prepared to address the Philippines' critical financial problems. She seems to be running out of time. And so does her country.

Qatar has become a centre of project finance expertise as the government pursues big industrial and infrastructure projects. Skills have spread from foreign banks to local institutions and are being used in the whole region.

The price of oil might be heading towards $100 per barrel but that doesn't seem to be blunting some bankers' appetites for fuel-guzzling vehicles. Nor is their ability to make money necessarily linked to good taste when spending it, as evidenced by the recent purchase of a stretch Hummer by London-based Citigroup managing director Valentin Ehmer.

It's difficult to make money in Russian private equity. Consequently, many of the world's biggest funds have steered clear. For those that have taken the plunge, the results are mixed. Some report returns far higher than those on equities. Others have had no luck and have packed up and left.

The bid for plain-vanilla government/public sector debt professionals continues. BNP Paribas has plucked Heidi Crebo-Rediker from Bear Stearns to join its sovereigns, agencies and supranationals desk as a managing director. Crebo-Rediker reports to Chris Marks and is a long-overdue replacement for the vivacious Alex Corley Smith, who decamped to the New York office several months back. BNP Paribas also appointed product expert Jacques Delpla to work in its Paris office. Delpla worked most recently as an adviser in the French finance ministry but was previously also a fixed-income specialist at Barclays Capital in France.

Slow-paced reform and privatization look set to provide opportunities for foreign investment in the Libyan banking sector, but with a lot of provisos.

In just two years, Nigeria's finance minister has helped to transform foreign perceptions of her country. Her crowning achievement was the Paris Club deal, but her reforms have much greater implications for Nigeria's economic future.

The woman who has run the central bank since 2000 has overseen reform of the exchange rate, the capital markets and the banking industry. With her encouragement the country has also become a hub for Islamic finance.

In 2002 the Dubai authorities announced the appointment of a distinguished chairman to its financial regulator that would give credibility to the country's attempts to establish itself as the leading Arab financial centre. Just two years later he was fired. Now, for the first time, Ian Hay Davison gives a first-hand account of the events that led to his dismissal. In the following linked article, the current chief executive of the DFSA gives his response

Governor of the Central Bank of Libya Ahmed Menesi talks to Kate Luxford about plans to prepare Libya's economy for a more competitive environment after privatization

After months of debate about the number of companies to be reprivatized, progress is made