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In this round-up, China’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) beats expectation, aggregate financing in the Mainland reaches Rmb13tr ($1.9tr) and Nomura’s China joint venture nears kick-off.

In this round-up, US president Donald Trump unexpectedly announced an increase in tariffs on China, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) bumped up the re-lending quota for smaller banks and Mainland regulators said they are not planning to use the property market as a short-term stimulus.

The latest idea captivating sustainable finance enthusiasts is transition bonds.

Riskier credits are missing their window to print bonds. Rates are plumbing ever lower and investors are forced to seek out yield ever further along the credit spectrum. It won’t last forever, but now is the time for ambitious deals.

It is common during awards pitches for journalists to be outnumbered. But some banks take it to extremes.

Ahead of the 2019 Covered Bond Awards, GlobalCapital used Covered BondMarker and Dealogic data to assess which banks have performed best in the market over the last year. BNP Paribas was found to have worked on some of the most impressive covered bonds, HSBC helped arrange the largest volume of sales, while LBBW has taken the biggest share of the euro market.

UBS and Citi trader Tom Hayes was jailed for 11 years for manipulating Libor. But while the trader argued that he was made a scapegoat for the financial crisis, perhaps the rate he rigged is a bigger victim.

Ukraine’s GDP warrants are trading around a cash price of 85. That is way below JP Morgan's view that fair value is closer to 135. No matter the new, surprisingly positive GDP growth forecasts and enthusiasm for the country’s new leadership, from the trading numbers it seems clear that investors do not believe they will get their money from Ukraine.

Andrew Hollingworth, a portfolio manager at Holland Advisors and shareholder in Sports Direct, has urged Mike Ashley, the sports retailer’s owner, to pay more attention to corporate governance. But had Hollingworth known about the US private placement market’s experience of dealing with Ashley — in this case over debt owed by one of his other businesses, Newcastle United FC — he might have campaigned for it even more strongly.

India’s plan to sell its first international bond has been caught in a battle of wills between the ministry of finance and the government. While any issuance is likely to be received well by the market, the sovereign should hold off on a deal until it is ready to present a united front to investors.

In this round-up, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China bought an 11% stake in troubled Bank of Jinzhou, some Star-listed companies will become eligible for trading on the Stock Connect and the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) plans to tighten supervision of financial holding companies.

In this round-up, two more Chinese corporations defaulted on their domestic bonds, Bank of China (BOC) said offshore bonds were cheaper than onshore in June, and the Hong Kong market welcomed ETFs targeting China’s biotech and cloud computing sectors.