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In November, Grand Canyon Education, a provider of online education services, broke the US market’s 15-week drought of IPOs with a $126 million deal, ending the US’s driest spell since 1975.

The platform’s chief executive, Phil Weisberg, says the firm is ready to face the difficulties of a bear market.

57 the level of the State Street Investor Confidence Index, a record low

Agency brokers build fixed-income teams.

Uncertainty over bridge loans for infrastructure projects.

Bumper results produced by many FX units are likely to prove a sideshow in what will be a year of write-downs and general value destruction.

Once out of favour, futures traders are coming into their own by maintaining solid positive returns in grim markets, argues Neil Wilson.

The Asian units of the world’s leading investment banks have not been immune to the industry-wide job cuts being announced.

Multilateral trading facilities have been gaining market share in recent months but the market itself has been shrinking. MTFs’ conspicuous success is also attracting some unwanted attention.

Parex banka, Latvia’s second-largest bank, has been effectively nationalized by the authorities in Riga after a run on the bank. Under the agreement with the Latvian government, some 51% of Parex banka shares were transferred to the state-owned Mortgage and Land Bank of Latvia with a buy-back option after one year. Majority shareholders Valery Kargin and Viktor Krasovitsky will retain a 34% holding, with the 15% balance retained by minority shareholders. The state will also provide a €285 million loan to Parex. Commenting on the government’s move, Latvian prime minister Ivars Godmanis says: "It is necessary to do everything to avert disruptions of the banking and financial system." As part of that, his government is seeking between €1 billion and €3 billion from the IMF and the EC to rescue Latvia’s economy.

As was widely expected, the government in Kazakhstan has stepped in to support the central Asian republic’s embattled banking sector. Since the onset of the global credit crunch last August, Kazakh banks have found themselves under severe pressure given the choking off of cheap funding from abroad, which helped to finance the rapid expansion of branch networks and lending portfolios at home. At the same time the domestic economic environment has deteriorated rapidly, with GDP this year expected to come in at 4.5% – less than half the 10% average annual growth levels seen since the start of the decade. The straitened economic circumstances have also led to a sharp increase in bad debt levels. While pre-credit crunch non-performing loans were in the range of 1.5% to 3% they have now jumped to 7% to 8% although some observers believe the true figure is as high as 15%.

In response to the impact of the global economic crisis on central and eastern Europe, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is looking to increase its investments in 2009. EBRD president Thomas Mirow has outlined a proposal to invest up to €7 billion, a record amount for any single year since the bank was founded and 20% higher than previously planned. As EBRD investments have typically attracted additional funding from commercial partners of at least 2:1, EBRD-led financing could exceed €20 billion in 2009.