Jason Karaian

These days, the job of a bank analyst is even more thankless than usual. Banks already publish the most impenetrable financial statements in the corporate world, making assessments of their earnings potential and balance sheet strength a herculean task. And just when you think you have a handle on things, yet another big scandal rears its head and wrecks your forecasts.

“The economy has been stronger than we thought. That’s a good thing, obviously.”

The palm trees lining the boulevards give it away: It can get pretty warm in Sochi. In fact, it hit a high of 61°F (16°C) in the city yesterday, and wasn’t much cooler today. Even higher temperatures are forecast for later this week.

The numbers: Grim. Barclays reported a pre-tax profit of £191 million ($314 million) in the fourth quarter, down a whopping 86% from the previous year. The group had already flagged bad news by announcing a drop in full-year profit, which it released ahead of schedule yesterday, but investors still didn’t like what they found in the full details released today; the bank’s shares promptly sank in early trading.

Any Swiss citizen who collects 100,000 signatures can put an initiative to a national referendum. This brand of extreme direct democracy is unique on this scale, and has generally served Switzerland well—certainly in comparison with other referendum-driven systems, such as California’s.

For critics of the financial industry, just about every big bank is a “bad bank.”

For Switzerland’s two dominant banks, size matters. But there is a twist to the competition between UBS and Credit Suisse in recent years—both are desperately trying to shrink. The main target for reduction is the capital-intensive, error-prone investment banking operations at both groups, which suffered to varying degrees from damaging stumbles before and after the financial crisis.

These days, it doesn’t take much digging to find potentially scandalous behavior coursing through the world’s biggest banks. But the latest round of probes into currency trading are shaping up to be a real doozy.

The numbers: The banking giant reported a net profit of 917 million Swiss francs ($1.02 billion) in the fourth quarter, more than double the average analyst estimate. This was enhanced by a one-off tax benefit, but even without it the bank managed to beat expectations. Investors pushed up UBS’s shares by more than 5% in early trading.

Corruption costs the European Union’s economy €120 billion ($162 billion) per year, according to a major new survey published today by the European Commission. Three-quarters of people across the EU think corruption is widespread within their country, and just over half believe it has become worse over the past three years. This is the first report of its kind to chronicle shady dealings across the continent, including plenty of naming and shaming of national anti-corruption efforts.

The numbers: The low-cost airline reported a net loss of €35.2 million ($47.5 million) in the three months ending in December as the effects of a price war it launched began to sting. Despite the reversal from a profit of €18.1 million a year ago, investors welcomed the news, which was in line with the company’s twice-lowered guidance. Ryanair’s share price jumped by more than 5% in early trading.

Around the world, financial firms have carved out special units to deal with their most toxic assets. These so-called “bad banks” (or “non-core” divisions, to use less coarse terminology) house lousy loans and problematic property portfolios quarantined from viable core businesses. The managers in non-core units are charged with selling off these assets for as much as they can, as fast as they can. Analysts at RBS reckon that big European banks still need to shed some €440 billion ($596 billion) in assets to meet new regulatory requirements.

Equity analysts are nothing if not persistent. Despite a long track record of misplaced optimism, they tend to forecast big things coming around the bend for corporate earnings—even when the future looks decidedly grim.

The European Central Bank has little room to maneuver, with its benchmark policy rate set at only 0.25%. But the odds that it will cut this rate to zero at its next meeting, on Feb. 6, just jumped.

The euro zone’s credit crunch grinds on. The European Central Bank’s latest data on bank lending, updated yesterday with numbers for December, paint a sorry picture for businesses. On a year-over-year basis, business loans have shrunk in 30 of the past 48 months.

The market has finally decided that Ukraine is at a crisis point. This morning, the yield on Ukrainian dollar bonds due this June rose to 12.85%, the highest since president Viktor Yanukovych last month ditched the European Union and agreed to a new trade alliance with Russia.

Central banks generally try to avoid surprising the markets. But when a bank hastily convenes an emergency meeting at midnight, it’s clearly not business-as-usual.

It was bound to happen sometime. The UK’s surprisingly strong economy disappointed the analysts, for once, with fourth quarter GDP growth coming in a bit below the consensus expectation. That said, 0.7% growth in the quarter only marginally missed the market forecast for a 0.8% rise.

The numbers: Swedish furniture giant Ikea reported a 3.2% rise in revenue in its latest fiscal year, to €28.5 billion ($38.9 billion). In the year to August 2013, the group’s net profit increased at a similar rate, to €3.3 billion. Both sales and profit set new records for the company, but the rate of growth was a lot lower than in previous years.

Matthias Zachert is not a household name. Even among those who follow European business, the 46-year-old German CFO (pictured above) is not top of mind. But those in the know think Zachert is a uniquely capable manager, and are willing to put their money behind him.

The euro zone’s largest economy is the strongest it has been in years. That’s at least the impression one gets from surveys of business managers in Germany.

Croatia joined the European Union last July, more than 10 years after first applying for membership. Some dubbed its accession “lucky” because, frankly, the economy is a mess. Should the EU have brought another recessionary, tourism-dependent country in southern Europe into the fold?

It’s been a tough few years for Logitech. The high watermark in sales of PC accessories for the iconic computer mouse and keyboard maker was way back in the last quarter of 2007. So what’s behind the company’s surprisingly strong most recent quarter?

Those were the days. Before the global financial crisis morphed into the euro debt crisis, investors saw all euro-zone government bonds more as more or less the same. Yields on German, Spanish and even Greek bonds traded within a narrow range. (Yields move in the opposite direction to prices.)