Europe

Frankfurt-based Eurex Clearing on Thursday announced that 24 firms had signed up to take advantage of its new partnership programme for repo market participants.

Portugal extended its duration with a bond exchange on Wednesday, exchanging two bonds maturing in 2020 and 2021 for taps of bonds maturing in 2023 and 2027.

Net covered bond supply from France is likely to fall in 2019, which should support spreads. However, French banks were among the most active users of the the European Central Bank's Targeted Longer Term Refinancing Operations (TLTRO), which, as it starts to mature, will need to be refinanced - and the covered bond market could be poised to provide some of that funding.

Moody’s has slapped a negative outlook on the UK’s GlaxoSmithKline, after the pharmaceuticals company said it planned a debt funded $5.1bn deal for US oncology company Tesaro.

Sterling investors poured into the UK Gilt market on Tuesday after Theresa May’s Brexit plans received multiple defeats in parliament. They will "remain cautious" ahead of the crunch vote on the Brexit deal on December 11, according to buy-side analysts.

The equity capital market has virtually closed for the year with work focusing on planning deals for 2019, said bankers, although some deals are still getting done.

Widening spreads for UK financial firms have opened up attractive opportunities for investors comfortable with the underlying resilience of the sector. Despite the risks that Brexit and competition from new sources pose, there were no failures in the Bank of England's stress test last week.

On Monday, the euro corporate bond market delivered its largest ever deal in December. However, on Tuesday, there was no follow-up and the dramatic fall in global equity markets has led some investors to call the end of 2018 from a new issue perspective.

Germany will head covered bond supply in 2019 with high redemptions and a booming housing market set to fuel volumes.

The European Union has taken a step towards using the bank capital risk weighting system to favour green assets and discourage ‘brown’ unsustainable lending — one of the most controversial issues on the sustainable finance policy agenda.

The Turkish government is mulling plans to print asset backed securities against the country's banks' mortgage stock. Some are calling the idea a “bad bank in disguise”. It isn't, but Turkey will need one.

Speculation is rife in the government bond markets that the European Central Bank will deploy special monetary policy to support Italian BTPs. Aside from being a ridiculous idea — Italy has got itself into this mess with its own budget proposals, not because it is in a financial crisis — such support brings with it yet more rules that Italy would have to abide by in order to receive the help.