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Jamie Dimon, long known to be among the mouthiest of the titans of investment banking and the loudest bitcoin sceptic of all, now presides over the first ever cryptocurrency from a major bank.

In the emerging markets over the past year the art of bond investing has often felt like perfecting the skill of mitigating disaster — of knowing when to catch a falling knife or jump on a rebound before everyone else does.

It can be rough living in one of the world’s most expensive cities. Tai Tai and I are fortunate enough to afford a lovely home with plenty of room for my Scotch collection, but I know most people in Hong Kong aren’t so lucky.

Biofuels have swollen thanks to policies to combat climate change — even though often, they do not help the problem and can make it worse. This is a shocking record, born of ignorance, both accidental and wilful.

Indian debt issuers have started 2019 with a bang, rolling out more than $3bn of bonds in January. Will the country eclipse the dismal dollar bond volumes it managed last year? Don’t bet on it. As a divisive election looms, it is more likely that Indian issuance will disappoint for a second year running.

In this round-up, China and the US will talk in Beijing at the end of the week, China’s interbank payment and settlement system survived the Lunar New Year red packet frenzy and a draft of the foreign investment law will be submitted in early March.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is well aware of the fact that €400bn borrowed under TLTRO II will no longer be counted as stable funding from June, so a new financing package is certain to be announced in the next month or two. But issuers waiting for a handout are going to be disappointed by what follows and will be obliged to tap capital markets, just as conditions deteriorate.

GlobalCapital revealed the winners of its 2018 Loan Awards at its annual Syndicated Loans and Leveraged Finance Awards Dinner at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower in London on February 6. The complete results are below. GlobalCapital congratulates all the winners and nominees.

With SSA primary market conditions red hot, it would be wise for French public sector borrowers to crack on with their funding ahead of a double whammy of risk events in May.

In this round-up, Bloomberg Barclays confirmed the upcoming inclusion of Chinese bonds in its indices, the People’s Bank of China will auction CNH bills in mid-February, and industrial profits in China confirmed poor ending for the economy in 2018.

In this round-up, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued plans to merge two long-standing access schemes for foreign investors, the United States Justice Department unveiled charges against Huawei just as trade talks were set to begin, and JP Morgan (JPM) received approval to offer Hong Kong funds in China.

Pacific Gas & Electric has gone bankrupt with $52bn of debt, blaming forest fires that seared California during 2018. Vale, with $11bn, has been downgraded to the bottom edge of investment grade after its horrific dam burst last Friday.