Pre-migration untagged articles

The first triple-B quality corporate bond of the year underlined Swiss franc investors’ taste for corporate paper this week, although other buyers took their search for yield to the long end of the market through triple-A buying.

The UK’s Financial Services Authority has thrown its weight behind making regulatory capital requirements anti-cyclical.

The deepening woes in the US economy and banking system were writ large last week when Citi and Bank of America each announced worse than expected losses in the fourth quarter, sparking investor panic and a dramatic sell-off in global bank stocks.

Enquiry for government guaranteed bank MTNs is drying up as public deals drain demand and investors become ever more cautious of the underlying credit.

Dealers of private EMTNs: Non-syndicated deals for less than $250m excluding financial repackaged SPVs, self-led deals and issues with a term of less than 365 days.

Standard & Poor’s launched its new credit default swap indices on Wednesday, but Markit, owner of the rival and well established CDX indices, says it is not worried that they will offer serious competition.

"The UK government is looking like a huge bank with some legislative functions attached" With RBS teetering on the brink of full nationalisation, James Hughes of CMC Markets, attempts to make sense of the four core functions of government: legislative, executive, judicial and, um, securitisation.

Simple structured notes are once again being used to satisfy the needs of cautious but yield-hungry investors. Range accruals and callable zeros were traded this week and there was ample reverse enquiry for leveraged constant maturity swap (CMS) issues, credit-linked notes (CLNs), equity-linked trades and puttable bonds.

KBC will post a Eu2.5bn loss for 2008 after Eu2.6bn of writedowns in the fourth quarter. The bank also revealed it would receive a Eu2bn core capital injection from the Flemish regional government, taking its tier one ratio to 10.5% (8% core). It has put in place a Eu1.5bn, non-dilutive core capital facility for the next five years, paying a 1% fee on the undrawn amount.