Sovereign borrowers

CEO and president of Shariah Funds Inc

General Hilmi Ozkok, Turkey's army chief of staff, last month expressed his displeasure at prime minister Abdullah Gul's interference in army policy towards Islamist officers. In a speech he made at the military's annual party for the media (Islamist journalists are not invited) Ozkok said Gul's attitude would "indubitably encourage those who got mixed up in recidivist [meaning Islamic fundamentalist] activities".

The AKP’s hefty majority in Turkey’s November elections looked promising but indecision has taken a hold on the new government, not least in its commitment to the discipline required by the IMF.

Many of the futures commission merchants favour a model for the US futures business that is suspiciously similar to that employed in the US options market. It's a model, conversely, that the futures exchanges are keen to avoid, as they have seen what effect it has had on the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

In his first two months in the job, Bernie Dan, chief executive of the Chicago Board of Trade, has made two quick and bold decisions. It was the second that got the most publicity: the announcement to dump the exchange's joint venture with Eurex in favour of using the Liffe Connect trading platform.

Perhaps he'd had a bad night's sleep. Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue. Or perhaps the man who told us last June that we needed to buck up our standards in the wake of the corporate crises in the US simply wanted to tell the truth.

Fund management

The word from Paris is that BNP Paribas chairman and CEO Michel Pébéreau is more than a little distracted from his favourite pastime of reading science-fiction novels.

Romania's publicity-friendly tourism minister, Dan Matei Agathon, is looking to give a lift to investment in the state-sponsored Dracula Park - a tourist trap inspired by the vampire. He plans to start trading Dracula Park shares on the Rasdaq exchange this month.

Cades, the state-backed agency set up to pay off France's social security debt, has sizeable yearly funding needs and prides itself on the quality and regularity of the information it provides to the market.

The next battle in the war for survival in US exchange-traded futures is about to begin, and it looks set to be much more cut-throat than before. The Board of Trade and the Merc, once seemingly set for extinction, have been reborn as fierce competitors. They must continue to evolve.

For years companies leveraged up to boost shareholder returns. When the boom burst the disappointment of stockholders was as nothing to the wrath of creditors who have pushed companies to the brink. Some have pulled back, others are still teetering, only a few have steered well clear of trouble.

Stock markets started 2003 in a relatively buoyant mood. The view seemed to be that the world economy would come out of a soft patch, that the Bush administration would deliver tax cuts that sustained US consumer spending and that war in Iraq would go smoothly and quickly, slashing oil prices.

Sovereign borrowers

As investors cut back on corporate exposure, high-quality issuers are scooping up funding. Smaller ones can satisfy their needs with many bite-size deals rather than a few jumbos.

Sovereign borrowers

Lang Kwai Fong - the area in Hong Kong where you go to drink before you hit the really seedy bars - used to be a good gauge of how happy and confident expatriates were. According to an Australian banker, in the 1990s it was busy during the good times and quiet during the bad. These days, though, expats have changed their drinking habits.

Fixed income

Foreign exchange

Investment banking

Sovereign borrowers

Japan

M&A

The gold price has risen spectacularly in the past year but it is not clear that this buoyancy can be maintained, particularly as investment demand has far exceeded any increase in purchases by manufacturers.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has achieved a breadth of funding sources that few borrowers can rival. It is the only supranational issuer with benchmark programmes in three currencies - euros, dollars and sterling - and it is also the largest non-resident borrower in central and eastern Europe. Rene Karsenti, EIB's director general of finance, says: "We have a strategic presence in the accession states as we lend in these countries. It's also important to contribute to the development of these local bond markets in the run-up to EU accession, as we did with Portugal, Greece and Spain before their own accession."

Ukraine

Middle East

Some points to consider before you dabble in the yellow metal.

Despite the continuing weakness of equity markets, institutional investment in hedge funds has grown only slowly.