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T he pipeline of initial public offerings for 2010 looks promising as private equity firms look to cash in on their investments after coming back to the nearly defunct market in the fall. Online networking companies may take center stage.

R ussian aluminum giant UC Rusal will try to raise as much as $2.6-billion (U.S.) by selling shares in Hong Kong in late January to reduce its mountain of debt, the company said Thursday. Among the chief customers for the offering will be the foreign banks which have already lent Rusal money, and Russian state-connected companies such as bank VEB, which earlier lent Rusal money in order to keep the company in Russian hands. But the company’s prospectus for the minority stake also named high-profile investment funds as participants in the deal.

C opper prices HG-FT rose more than 1 per cent to 16-month highs and ended with an annual gain of almost 140 per cent Thursday as fund buying and a looming mine strike in Chile buoyed prices on the final day of 2009. Benchmark copper for three-month delivery on the London Metal Exchange closed up $45 (U.S.) at $7,375 a tonne. The metal, used in power and construction, earlier touched $7,423.75, its highest since Sept

T he stock market is where you go in order to make higher returns than you can get from virtually risk-free bonds and guaranteed investment certificates. On average, you can expect to make 6 to 8 per cent annually in stocks, and there will be years when you hit double digits.

I spend a lot of time thinking about personal finance and, as the decade draws to a close, am feeling retrospective. Ten years ago I was getting married and working at a dot com startup. I had little personal equity, though I had diligently saved my earnings from part-time work during university, and my husband-to-be came saddled with a large student debt load.

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