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Eleven covered bonds were priced in the first week of 2016 despite the onset of European holidays and US non-farm payroll data.

Saudi Arabia gave equity capital market bankers hungry for mega-deals something to look forward to on an otherwise bleak midwinter day of trading on Thursday, as its deputy crown prince touted the idea of a sale of Saudi Aramco shares.

A healthy euro benchmark pipeline is building for next week, with one supranational looking to print and a pair of sovereigns believed to be considering deals, after a week that didn’t finish as strongly as it started for core issuers.

Back in August 2014, I wrote a note that highlighted how the restructuring of Banco Espirito Santo (BES) exposed flaws in the 2003 ISDA credit default swap definitions, flaws that should be remedied by the new definitions introduced later that year.

After a spike to start the week, three month option-implied volatility on WTI crude oil continued higher, reaching more than 47% annualised on Thursday as futures prices fell to fresh six year lows.

Options on Hong Kong-listed Chinese shares traded at one of the most expensive levels of relative value in recent history on Thursday as traders bid the premium for Hang Seng China Enterprises Index (HSCEI) contracts well above the recent realised volatility of the index.

China has suspended its new policy of using ‘circuit breakers’ to stop trading when its stockmarkets fall too fast, after a week when the market twice fell 7% and was shut down for the rest of the day.

The Bank of Portugal ripped up the resolution rule book for its controversial bail-in of five Novo Banco senior bonds last week, throwing uncertainty on future resolutions and leaving investors to reassess their relationship with Portuguese bank debt, Tyler Davies reports.

Latin American development bank Corporación Andina de Fomento will look to private markets to sell further SRI bonds this year, its CFO told GlobalCapital, after the issuer raised over $100m equivalent of debt via a so-called “water bond”.

High yield has had a tough start to the year. Not a single deal has been announced, amid a fresh bout of risk-aversion in global markets, and the Markit iTraxx Crossover index has widened from 315bp to 339bp.

The Inter-American Development Bank raised $3bn on Thursday amid a buoyant dollar market for public sector borrowers at the start of 2016.

The Russian Ministry of Finance is living in a fantasy land if it thinks the IMF will have to reconsider its support of Ukraine under the Extended Fund Facility Agreement, according to analysts.