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The European secondary loan market was bracing itself for a painful year-end in December as balance-sheet-driven forced selling started to bite.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has secured more than $12 million in restitution and civil monetary penalties against nine Florida defendants in settlement of an anti-fraud lawsuit related to the marketing of illegal off-exchange FX options.

Hedge funds were ill-prepared for a downturn. Survivors of the shake-out will need to develop their business management skills to cope, says Nick Evans, editor of EuroHedge.

The Norwegian government and Eksportfinans have announced a facility that will provide long-term financing for the country’s export sector.

International derivatives exchange Eurex will launch property futures in the first quarter, a move that could improve liquidity. The first contracts will capture the annual returns on the IPD UK All Properties Total Return index. With the introduction of IPD Index futures, Eurex aims to work with present market participants to provide the benefits of an exchange-traded contract and to attract new market participants and liquidity.

Kazakhstan’s bankers are taking a defiant stance towards the financial crisis. Despite the fact that important sectors of the economy such as banking and construction have been hit hard by the global credit crisis, which has cut off the supply of cheap foreign funding that backed their rapid expansion, investment bankers believe there is still plenty of potential business to be fought over.

Trichet is determined that extreme economic conditions should not lead to the abandonment of fiscal stability.

A GDP growth rate of 8% has long been touted by Chinese authorities as well as commentators as an important threshold; should the rate slip lower, the argument runs, the slowdown might trigger dangerous social problems. Analysts at foreign banks have universally tended to avoid predicting that this might happen but an interesting trend to watch for in 2009 will be the emergence of the ‘below-eight-percenters’ if conditions in China do not improve. Early out of the gates was Qu Hongbin, analyst at HSBC, who wrote in December that while China’s Rmb4 trillion ($2.16 billion) stimulus could lift growth above 8% in the second half of the year, "weaker growth in H1 ‘09 will drag the whole year average to 7.8%". Watch this space.

South Africa’s central bank cut rates for the first time in three years in December. The repo rate was lowered to 11.5% compared with an annual inflation rate of 12.4% in October. The central bank expects inflation to fall within the 3% to 6% target range by the third quarter of next year. Lower oil prices and consumer demand have helped tame inflation. However, lower gold and platinum prices have also hit South Africa’s exports.

What does the future hold for Mexico’s Banamex, which Citi owns? Although the US bank claims that Banamex is important to its recovery, after its sub-prime losses, many bankers and analysts in Mexico are sceptical. Speculation is rife about the future of the bank.

Dubai investment bank Shuaa Capital has announced that it will cut 9% of its workforce, or 21 jobs. "Our approach to managing our expenses is driven by the reality imposed on us from external market conditions and how we see our businesses performing next year," said Iyad Duwaji, chief executive. "We have a clear plan that reallocates resources to areas where we see demand in 2009, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and increasing our market share in brokerage and asset management," he said. Diminishing Gulf issuance has harmed Shuaa’s revenue. Moody’s is reviewing the firm’s rating for downgrade.

Peter Hansell has joined Cairn Capital from Lehman Brothers’ global real estate group.