The United States dodged a bullet earlier this week after rival political factions struck an eleventh-hour deal on the nation's debt ceiling. However, the country is by no means out of the woods yet, not least when it comes to keeping its coveted triple-A credit rating, the loss of which would be a further blow to banks' already pressured trading revenues.

With the US's triple-A credit rating intact but on negative outlook in some quarters, the risk still persists of a downgrade, but while analysts at Bernstein Research in the US believe the loss of the top-notch rating would not be "an end of the world event", it will likely have a negative impact on the debt markets and specifically the revenues of the large fixed-income houses on Wall Street.