It may appear that all financial institutions offer similar products and services to the same group of blue-chip clients. If you spend time going through their annual reports, industry journals and magazines, combing through the daily financial newspapers, you will notice that every institution have their own strengths and is the market leader in certain products and services. Some houses are well regarded for emerging market bonds and currencies, while others could be reputed for their unique expertise in derivative products. One unfolding development as major banks consolidate and merge their operations is that the number of counter parties for trades is getting smaller.

　　The major categories that are usually featured in the league table or industry polls include mergers & acquisitions, equity underwriting, debt underwriting, corporate advisory, derivatives and FX trading. For mergers & acquisitions, this is further divided into U.S. domestic, Pan-European, Asia and cross-border transactions. Equity underwriting is divided into various categories: the U.S., Individual countries in Western Europe, Global depository receipts (GDRs), American depository receipts (ADRs). Debt underwriting encompasses even more categories: U.S. Corporate bonds-investment grade, high-yields, municipal bonds, convertible bonds, Eurobonds, Yankee Bonds, Samurai bonds, etc. Corporate advisory is further divided into anti-takeover defense, capital restructuring, divestitures, capital raising, etc. The derivatives category includes credit derivatives, equity derivatives, interest rates derivates, swaps, among others. FX markets include all the major exchange rates such as EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GPB/USD, USD/CHF, and the major cross rates such as EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY.