North America

Royal Bank of Canada is set to become the first covered bond issuer in Canada to join the Covered Bond Label initiative.

Wall Street banks celebrated a surge in earnings by flooding the dollar market with multi-billion dollar trades featuring callable tranches this week.

Donald Trump could end up being China’s best friend following his comments this week that the dollar is too strong. If the US president elect decides to engineer a weaker dollar, it would help solve China’s most imminent issue — capital outflows.

Pattern Energy Group is planning to print its first corporate bond this week with a $350m high yield offering that will primarily finance acquisitions of wind power projects from its developer-sponsor, Pattern Development.

On Wednesday, Citi reported a boost in profit during the fourth quarter of 2016, propelled by increased trading activity in light of year-end political uncertainty.

One of the busiest days ever in the public sector dollar market ended with five issuers sitting on deals printed at the top end of their size targets and with pricing tightened from initial thoughts. Another borrower is already out for Thursday business and bankers predict that conditions are so “incredible” that deal flow will stay healthy into next week — no matter what policy statements incoming US president Donald Trump makes at his inauguration on Friday.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has appointed a head of compliance for its European Global Trade Repository (GTR) business.

Morgan Stanley reported a jump in profits and revenue in the fourth quarter of 2016, as activities in the bank’s trading group propelled it to a strong finish to the year.

Plans for the Chicago Board Options Exchange to link up with Bats Global Markets took a big step forward this week, with both sets of shareholders approving the exchanges’ merger and a motion to issue shares supporting the deal.

Credit Suisse has named two bankers co-heads of global leveraged finance.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has given LCH.Clearnet and its clearing members permission to portfolio margin customer positions.

Welcome to Trump-week, as the president-elect makes final preparations before being sworn into office this Friday. Trump dominated weekend headlines by declaring that the long-standing One China policy is now up for negotiation. In the renminbi markets, meanwhile, the week is off to a slow start as the currency stabilises, and Chinese authorities discuss the future role of the Shanghai free trade zone.