United States

National Australia Bank packed $3.5bn of funding into a multi-tranche deal on Wednesday, taking advantage of strong demand and a heightened risk appetite among US investors.

2015 set a number of records in the options market as traders flocked to index and volatility-linked products, but equity options volumes dipped due to factors that look likely to persist in 2016.

Get bought or go bust: Is this the year when vulnerable oil & gas companies have to make the choice? So far this year, derivatives traders are pricing contracts for more vulnerability to come.

Competition between derivatives exchanges is intensifying, giving rise to a rash of product and platform launches in 2015, as well as geographical expansion. But 2016 will be dominated by regulatory deadlines for electronic trading. As Dan Alderson reports, exchanges that best prepare market participants to meet these requirements will be the ones that will win out.

2015 will be remembered as a year when volatility returned to financial markets. With strong technical buffers to the trading range of US and European equity markets going into 2016, short volatility strategies look set to be compelling money earners in the year ahead, writes Andrew Barber.

The US corporate bond market had a fine Tuesday in its first week back from Christmas holidays, printing five deals totalling $8.775bn. However, momentum proved short-lived as volatility brought issuance to a shuddering halt.

The US is top of every European banking chief executive’s to-do list for 2016, as they race to comply with new regulations that will define the future of their international ambitions. Consolidation beckons, writes David Rothnie.

UK banks have wasted no time in plundering a deep dollar market for holding company senior debt this week, while euro investors have been restricted to a variety show of covered bonds.

BGC Brokers, the interdealer broker, is making a push into the competitive world of over-the-counter derivatives portfolio compression and has already taken out over €800bn notional of swaptions.

European high yield specialists hope the continent's market can repeat in 2016 its sharp outperformance compared with the US market last year — but history suggests that the two markets tend not to diverge for long.

Options traders took Monday's oil volatility seriously, sending prices for near-dated contracts to some of the highest levels of recent months.

GlobalCapital’s Toby Fildes interviewed the heads of debt capital markets at 20 of the top 25 banks in late November and December, to ask their views on how the market will evolve in 2016. Here are their thoughts. Information design Jon Hay, Sam Medway