What a difference a year makes. If scandals, serial investigations and large-scale job losses made 2002 one of the worst in living memory for the investment banking industry, 2003 was a year of enormous opportunity. Conditions were favourable for much of the year, certainly for financing but more particularly for trading. A stabilising macroeconomic picture, rising stock markets, better corporate profitability, historically low interest rates, an abundance of buyside liquidity and a fair amount of volatility, all enabled investment banks to...Read more