A significant reliance on third parties for data, sophisticated risk modelling requirements and obtaining sufficiently detailed fund data were among the challenges identified by European insurers in order for them to meet Solvency II requirements, according to new research by BNP Paribas Securities Services and InteDelta.

The landscape has radically changed over the past four years, even though the number of launches once again started to increase in 2011. In 2007 there was a peak in the number of new hedge funds that were launched, with 1200 new funds created all over the world....

Whilst several experts estimate the that it will still be about ten years before the status of the yuan changes to that of a reserve currency, the exchange agreement between Japan and China which replaces the dollar with the yen or the yuan, for bilateral trade, could accelerate this change....

This is not electoral populism to only criticize rating agencies, rather than question their economic utility and try to ask questions about their actual skills, in other words their ability to analyze the creditworthiness of issuers they rate.

Saxo Bank has today released its annual Outrageous Predictions. Among the unlikely events predicted by the Bank are that Australia will go into recession, Basel III and regulation will force 50 bank nationalisations in Europe and Apple shares will plummet 50 percent from their 2011 high.