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No country in Asia needs a functioning domestic bond market more than Indonesia. And few are so far away from developing one - not least because it has no government benchmark from which to price corporate risk.

On Friday, December 8, 2000, the Korean government asked the local banks to maintain their credit levels to 235 Korean companies that were deemed as viable but suffering from large scale credit redemptions. The banks were asked to roll over loans and maturing bonds and maintain outstanding credits at November levels until the end of June 2001.

The Malaysian ringgit bond market is one of the largest bond markets in non-Japan Asia, after Korea. There is a varied supply of issuers and a cash-strong investor base. Malaysia also has a sound regulatory environment and relatively advanced financial infrastructure.

"Bond yields have been falling for the past two years, spreads between corporate and government paper have been narrowing, there is tremendous demand for paper among cashed up institutions and domestic underwriters have been bidding aggressively to win mandates from companies in a falling rate environment."

The Philippine debt market is dominated by government issuance - in a variety of fixed and floating rate instruments and short to long term tenors.

Before 1998, the Singapore dollar bond market was a cosy affair. A handful of banks raised money for local issuers, usually property companies, through private placements and in small sizes. It involved little fanfare and little risk.

Taking the Asian bond markets as a whole, it has been the domestic markets that have shown the most growth since the economic crisis of 1997, at the expense of the international dollar, yen and euro markets.

Thailand's bond market has grown rapidly since the May 1997 devaluation of the baht that plunged the region into economic crisis.

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Mike Reeber, global head of convertible bonds at Deutsche Bank in New York, is moving to Tokyo to become head of Asian equity derivatives. Rick Goldsmith, global co-head of equity derivatives in New York, said the move follows the departure of Masatoshi Inoue, who quit the world of banking to work for a software company in Seattle (DW, 4/23). Reeber will report to Goldsmith and Ralph Reynolds, global co-head of equity derivatives. Reeber and Reynolds were traveling and could not be reached. Nick Niell, head of international convertibles, will replace Reeber as global head of convertible bonds, according to a spokeswoman. Niell could not be reached.

Telecom credits that are taking a hit in the industry crash include McLeodUSA, which traded down to 74 before hitting 77 later this week. Level 3 traded down to 64, a credit that had been in the 80s just weeks ago. 360Networks is trading in the 19 range, after news broke that it had missed a bond payment a little more than a week ago and is the subject of Chapter 11 bankruptcy speculation. Superior TeleCom's bank debt is trading in the high 60s-low 70s, a drop from the 90s levels last summer. A $20 million chunk of Genesis Healthcare traded at 72, which is level to recent trades.

Scan a 10-Q filing and the words "derivatives" and "losses" tend to jump off the page and resonate in investors' minds in a way that the term "unrealized loss" does not, as General Electric discovered recently. GE's stock fell some 10% over the last 10 days of May in a move that some institutional investors say is attributable to the corporate having to disclose the fair value of derivatives on its balance sheet, in accordance with the Financial Accounting Standards Board's accounting rule 133. For most corporates this is the first calendar year in which they must report derivatives positions under FAS 133.