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Should Argentina issue its $15bn in one go or not? If president Mauricio Macri’s government — and its debt officials — continue to communicate and then back those words with action, it won’t matter how many deals it takes.

With some of the lowest fertility rates on earth, the highly indebted periphery nations are going to face a struggle to handle a combination of extensive social security obligations and a small numbers of workers to shoulder the burden.

No part of banking regulation has attracted more controversy than the bonus cap. Now, with the latest round of miserable bank results, pressure on profitability and capital ratios in question, it looks as though it’s doing exactly what was expected.

Barclays' new chief executive is asking shareholders to have a lot of faith. Selling off a profitable part of the business to double down on a less profitable line is a bold call. The market can't be this bad forever, but don't expect the dividend back any time soon.

Malaysia’s special purpose acquisition companies (Spacs) have gone from showing promise to dead in the water, with the first liquidation of one of the vehicles last week. It’s time for market participants to make up their minds about the asset class.

Voting is now open for the GlobalCapital 2016 Bond Dinner Awards. Read on for instructions on how to vote and how to download the voting sheets for each awards category. Voting closes on April 1.

The Ranger has discovered that chivalry is alive and well in the centuries-old German Schuldschein market. Schuldschein's finest were practically falling over themselves in their efforts to help the Ranger open doors, carry luggage and avoid deep puddles during her travels across Deutschland last week.

The European covered bond market has had to adapt to the distorting influence of the European Central Bank’s Covered Bond Purchase Programme (CBPP3), an unsettled outlook for global credit and ever lower yields. But relative value has improved with widening spreads, and real money investors that once deserted the asset class are starting to return. The combination of slightly less central bank buying, higher net issuance and slightly fewer real money investors, for eurozone bonds in particular, is hardly bullish. But buyers are now ready to jump back into covered bonds, as they see value.

The banking industry has progressed from the sort of soft, will-they-won’t-they mediocre revenue performance which characterised 2014 and 2015 to hardcore, unambiguous bottom line losses.

Coal is about the most basic commodity. It has become deeply unfashionable in recent years, tarred as the worst culprit in global warming. The charge may be true, but the accusations are so vehement partly because promoters of other hydrocarbons — oil, gas, biofuels — want to disguise their own responsibility.

Last summer investors turned to shorting bond exchange traded funds as the bond market kicked back into life amid the Greek crisis. Volatility has continued in earnest in 2016 as the Markit iTraxx Europe index, which tracks CDS spreads across investment grade issuers, hit a three year high of 121bp earlier this month.

When I was a banker dazzling clients with my handsome good looks, I was never one to read too much into a bank’s financial results.