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In this round-up, Chinese premier Li Keqiang encourages local government bond issuance, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection plans to investigate corruption around local government debt, and Shanghai is working to grow the Star board and attract more foreign investment into the city.

In this round-up, China’s economy grows at the slowest rate in nearly three decades, the central bank injects a shot of liquidity into the market through the medium-term lending facility and reverse repo, and DBS Bank (China) receives a bond settlement agent licence in the interbank market.

In the phase one trade deal signed on Wednesday between the US and China, the majority of the agreements focusing on the financial sector are simply reiterations and elaborations of what the Mainland government has already said. But there are now some concrete deadlines in place to open up the domestic market further to foreign firms.

As head of BlackRock, the largest asset manager, Larry Fink’s pivot to responsible investing in recent years has been influential.

The securitization market generates a mix of excitement and confusion, offering investors a novel way to boost their returns, diversify risks and — not very bold conjecture here — sometimes lose lots of money without quite understanding why.

JP Morgan and MUFG have been appointed Everton FC’s financial advisers to arrange roughly £500m ($651m) of financing for the football club’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock in Liverpool. One source close to the prospective deal told GlobalCapital “all options are on the table” regarding funding routes.

The only thing missing from a stellar start to 2020 is a capital transaction from Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

European banks don’t believe they have a free option to extend the lives of their additional tier one (AT1) securities, despite the apparent success of Banco Santander’s call policy.

Navigating the covered bond market will not be without its challenges in 2020. The Targeted Longer Term Refinancing Operation (TLTRO), European Central Bank deposit tiering and the Covered Bond Purchase Programme have collectively distorted the market, but added to this concoction is the impact of negative interest rates. Against this backdrop issuers, investors and investment bankers gathered in Munich in November to discuss the outlook for covered bonds. It is likely that new issue premiums will gradually tighten, but the path is unlikely to be smooth. January is typically the busiest month, but in 2019, issuers that funded this early paid the highest spreads. And, with the ECB expected to buy in the region of €4.5bn covered bonds a month, issuers will not feel compelled to move early. But the ECB monetary policy has unwelcome implications. Covered bonds have begun to lose value against government bonds, and this will extend if the ECB is unable to loosen restrictions on government bond purchases.

The US and China’s signing of the phase one agreement on trade this week will finally put almost two years of battling and tit-for-tat tariff retaliation behind the countries. However, while the truce may pave the way for more market stability and a boost in investor sentiment, it spells trouble for the Chinese offshore loan market.

Gradually over the past decade, Asian investors have become more and more important to European corporate private debt markets, to the point where they are now often indispensable. Asian borrowers have been slower to appear, but are now arriving. However, while these arrivals have largely benefited these markets, they have introduced a few complications.

An unusual note of optimism defines the attitude of Europe’s public sector issuers as they approach 2020. While many other markets are beset by fears of a slowdown in global growth, trade wars, and Brexit, SSA borrowers are confident in their borrowing strategies and loyal investor bases. Despite a change of face in the ECB’s top job, rates are still set to remain low for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, investors are having to grit their teeth to stomach the scanty yields on offer for euro SSA assets. Although SSAs are offering little in the way of yield, their place as pioneers of the evolving SRI market always ensures lively debate. In this roundtable, held in early November, market participants on both the buyside and the sell side favoured a more holistic assessment of issuers’ ESG profiles, rather than relying on labelled assets, but whether or not the ECB should take a role in promoting the SRI market through “green QE” divided the group.