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News of another corporate default from China has sent the media into a frenzy, with local reports of a broad sell-off in Chinese property bonds. But Zhejiang Xingrun Real Estate’s failure to pay off its creditors shouldn't be elevated to the status of a trigger event. The sector has much bigger problems than this default.

Banks have been fretting about Russian loans, both because it looks bad to lend to a country which has recently annexed part of another sovereign state, to widespread international condemnation, and because they don't want to be stuck with the risk if wider sanctions are imposed. They should band together to push Russian issuers towards their bond desks instead.

Alibaba has finally picked the US for its long-awaited IPO, which could top the $15bn mark. This followed a round-robin of exploratory permutations with a variety of listing venues, including Hong Kong’s HKEx, London’s LSE (with Prime Minister David Cameron said to have acted as luxury salesman, in a bid to woo founder Jack Ma to the UK), the NYSE and Nasdaq.

The past week’s acrimonious face-off between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours is likely to be short-lived, say regional bankers and investors. But while the short term sell-off should soon turn into a chance to buy again, it is a useful chance for international investors to re-assess the political and economic risks of the region.

Skyrocketing share prices combined with huge upside potential are making Chinese online game developers one of the hottest tickets in the equity market right now. But while the rewards of banking the next Candy Crush are certainly worth drooling over, the sector is beginning to look overheated.

Investors have been wringing their hands about secondary trading of EM bonds recently. Violent price action fosters illiquidity and makes new issues tough to execute. Russia’s altercation with Ukraine is just the latest driver of that. But the real problem that EM desks are going to face is not disruption, but the potential lack of bond and loan business as growth slows.

Coming home after a long day at the club and intent on a single malt nightcap, I found my entry barred. Forcing open the front door I discovered the culprit was an assortment of expensive looking bags from Lane Crawford.

The dollar sukuk market has seen three issues so far this year, with three great results capped off by the Islamic Development Bank boldly entering new territory with an unprecedented $1.5bn last Thursday. But while each of these deals has stirred Islamic finance professionals to proclaim the growing profile and pools of capital for the asset class, the market is yet to see a true test of demand.

Last week Hypo Real Estate Holding said it would sell the Dublin based Depfa plc by June. However market participants do not think that will happen, if the tight prices of the defunct bank’s covered bonds are anything to go by. But the market is wrong to think Germany won’t sell up.

Emerging markets are only for experts, as events in Ukraine and Russia showed this week. Big returns and big deals do not change that: they just make the stakes higher. This week, Lenta proved yet again that no matter how compelling the story, or well-liked the deal, investors should bear in mind that any apparently huge reward is always matched by commensurate risk.

The Bank of England’s Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) has finally caught fire. War in the Near East and the Oscars have obscured this extraordinary fact, but the last quarter saw almost as much borrowing as the entire year previously. This suggests that the banks were right all along — they weren’t lending because nobody was borrowing.

There appears to be no stopping the rise in three month TaiFX, the interbank US dollar funding rate in Taiwan. The widening divergence between TaiFX and Libor has increased the pressure on Taiwanese banks, forcing many to shrink their offshore lending. It is time for bookrunners consider the alternatives.