Global

GLOBAL - After a particularly productive fourth quarter, the consumer discretionary, industrials, materials, and information technology sectors halted their advances, according to State Street global Advisors' latest market commentary.

GLOBAL - The collapse of Enron has exposed massive overvaluation of US stocks, dashing hopes for a global recovery, according to claims by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

GLOBAL - Lazard has named Credit Suisse First Boston's (CSFB) Charles Ward as its new president.

GLOBAL - The Phillips & Drew (P&D) name is to be dropped as part of a brand reshuffle by parent company UBS but P&D has pledged its investment style will remain unchanged.

GLOBAL - Gartmore is set to launch a new hedge fund as part of its AlphaGen range, which looks to capitalise on global tech stocks.

GLOBAL - Trema, a provider of strategic technology solutions and management consulting services, yesterday announced that Finance KIT, its straight-through processing treasury, risk and asset management solution, now offers extended functionality.

GLOBAL - Emerging markets came up trumps again in January, posting a positive 2.8% return, according to the CSFB/Tremont Hedge Fund Index.

GLOBAL - Institutional investors should still bet on a forthcoming "explosion" in the private equity secondaries market, despite a steep downturn in the sector overall, says new research.

CENTRAL EUROPE - Germany's Allianz and UniCredito, the Italian bank, are set to take a bigger bite of Croatia's Zagrebacka banka in response to the country's looming pension reform.

GLOBAL - BITA Plus Consultants (BPC), the global provider of risk management and portfolio optimisation software, yesterday announced the release of BITA Curve, a modular risk management product for fund managers that uses an open architecture to facilitate...