Kleinwort Benson has hired Fadi Zaher from Barclays Wealth & Investment Management as head of bonds and currencies.

Newton's Jason Pidcock is maintaining an overweight to Australian equities in his Asian Income portfolio, despite the recent underperformance of the local currency against the US dollar.

Chinese stocks took a severe hit as the threat of a credit crunch in China escalated and the country's central bank threatened to continue its credit-tightening policy.

UK equity income funds are nearing single stock limits on key holdings, causing concentration risk fears to mount, but which funds are taking the biggest bets?

Standard & Poor's has cut the credit ratings of Barclays, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank due to "uncertain market conditions".

BlackRock has promoted Stefan Gries to co-manager of its European Absolute Alpha fund alongside Vincent Devlin.

The recent sell off in the bond market and growing liquidity issues have forced bond investors to use similar hedging techniques, undermining their effectiveness and causing concerns about how much downside protection funds really have.

Insight Investment has launched a UCITS version of its Short-Dated High Yield Bond fund, managed by Ulrich Gerhard.

The European Commission has accused 13 banks, including Barclays, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland, of colluding to hamper competition in the credit derivatives market.

BlackRock has launched its first UK domiciled fund investing in Asian equities for manager Andrew Swan, head of its Asian fundamental equities team.