Comment EM and The Cover

The US Federal Reserve deployed another tool from its arsenal yesterday: the ability to purchase individual corporate bonds. There is a strong belief in the markets that the central bank is acting, at least in part, to support equity markets, so why doesn’t it do so openly?

Chinese issuers have been slashing the coupons on their onshore puttable bonds in an attempt to save money. They are playing with fire.

Each week, GlobalCapital journalists share some of the most interesting things they have been reading, from the profound to the quirky. This week has been marked by widespread protests across the US and the wider world, in reaction to an unarmed African-American man, George Floyd, dying while a policeman knelt on his neck in Minneapolis.

Financial market participants have watched in disbelief this week as asset prices have kept rising, while US cities burn, unemployment breaks records, a global depression becomes more likely and the coronavirus pandemic still rages.

Only in Argentina could a finance minister claim that default on billions of dollars of bonds constitutes merely an “anecdotal date”.

In the classic UK sitcom Yes, Minister, cunning civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby would try to deter government minister Jim Hacker from making a particular decision by calling it "courageous" — meaning it was risky. He might have given similar advice to bankers on the IPO of coffee company JDE Peet’s this week.

Banks want to position themselves as ahead of the curve on sustainability. They are among the most sophisticated, well resourced, IT-savvy organisations in the world. Why can't they work out the carbon footprints of their portfolios?

UPDATED 16 May 3am BST Since March 18, when Europe's coronavirus caseload overtook east Asia's, it has had the most cases. On Tuesday Europe was surpassed by the Americas, which now has 1.86m as of Thursday.

Banks should be brave enough to take decisions that upset their additional tier one (AT1) investors.

Argentina’s turnaround under former president Mauricio Macri turned out to be a castle built on sand. But as the country heads towards default, the slick execution of its bond market fairytale between 2016 and 2018 could show the Fernández government how to handle investors.

China has taken a long-awaited step towards opening its real estate investment trust (Reit) market, publishing rules for a pilot programme. The regulators are understandably starting small, but the guidelines don’t do enough for companies that need to list Reits the most.

The wave of accelerated capital raisings in the UK in response to the Covid-19 crisis has caused consternation in some circles because retail investors cannot access to these deals. While the principle of shareholder equality is without doubt a noble one, in reality larger shareholders have always had more access to equity capital markets deals than retail investors have.