Leader

• Time to shed the sackcloth and ashes

  The ABS market needs to stop playing the grumpy old man reminiscing about better days. Next week’s Global ABS conference may be still paying penance in Brussels, rather than frolicking in its more glamorous former home of Barcelona, but this does not mean the market must behave like a self-flagellating mendicant. read more »

• RBS running out of time

  The strategic review at Royal Bank of Scotland’s markets division owes as much to politics as it does to pragmatism. read more »

EuroWeek View

• Stability — the European levloan market’s greatest strength

  The European leveraged loan market is proving its resilience. While investors flee the high yield bond market, new liquidity in the leveraged loan market continues to grow as European CLO issuance rumbles on. The steadfastness of these leveraged loan investors is a clear testament to the market’s true strength. read more »

• Latvia joins MTNs, but plenty room for more

  The Republic of Latvia has become the latest issuer to enter the warm embrace of a medium term note programme. With central and eastern European credits offering an enticing prospect for private placement investors, other countries from the region should follow suit. read more »

• There is good to come out of the high yield sell-off

  The sharp sell-off and big outflows from funds in Europe and the US have stripped the shine off the high yield bond market. But after a first half that featured record low pricing, net fund inflows and a wealth of looser structures, the pull-back should be seen as a useful return of discipline. read more »

• Asian bond markets go into rehab

  Until US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke brought an end to the party, Asia’s dollar bond market was overdosing on high liquidity, low yields and — some would say — a disregard for credit fundamentals. The current pause offers a chance for sober reflection. read more »

• Turkish Islamic finance is here to stay

  Political protests in Turkey should hold no fear for supporters of Islamic finance in the country. The hard work has been done and the product looks set for a big future. read more »

Top Stories

• High yield party sours as rates rise and funds flee

  Europe’s high yield market, which has enjoyed one of its longest unbroken runs of favourable market conditions since last September, has hit a nasty rough patch. After all the triumph over unprecedentedly low coupons and a record first half of issuance, the music has not quite stopped — but it has been turned right down. read more »

• Capital under pressure but FIG still an issuers’ market despite more widening of spreads

  FIG debt continued its lurching ride over market volatility this week, as bankers and other market participants struggled to understand the increasingly complex dynamics behind demand and supply in the sector and tried to gauge what the future could hold, write Will Caiger-Smith and Tom Porter. read more »

• Rising yields may drive structured MTN revival

  Private placements could help fill the breach left by a dearth of deals in the public markets, with issuers and investors dusting off their structured note manuals and eyeing up deals that had fallen by the wayside in recent years, writes Craig McGlashan. read more »