Breakingviews

 
The JPMorgan boss has $5.7 bln of Q3 profit to crow about - a third more than a year ago. Dimon’s standing took a drubbing earlier this year after dodgy trades cost the firm about $6 bln. Now he can breathe easier, but it’s too early to go back on the anti-regulation offensive.

BAE needs a new chairman

The UK defence company had to embrace the EADS deal because it was too weak to go it alone. Dick Olver, the chairman, must carry the can both for allowing BAE to slide and for poor management of the attempt to secure salvation-by-merger. Fresh leadership is required.

Review: Bairing the strain of failed regulation

Former U.S. bank regulator Sheila Bair is by no means perfect, as several incidents in “Bull by the Horns” demonstrate. But she put taxpayers first and argued for banks to shoulder more of the burden for the industry’s failures, which is how the system is supposed to work.

New York festival features Hollywood's new finance

Amid blockbuster debuts of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi,” the Big Apple’s 50th annual movie jubilee is showcasing small-budget productions like “The Last Time I Saw Macao.” Such indie and foreign films are reshaping the industry’s investment model.

Softbank-Sprint tie-up gets bad signal from market

Investors wiped $6.9 bln off the Japanese telco’s value on Oct. 12, three times the boost to its U.S. target. The deal would stretch Softbank financially, and may preclude smaller purchases closer to home. CEO Masayoshi Son has shown chutzpah; he must show discipline too.

Wall Street, City pay still must fall by a third

Morgan Stanley’s boss is right that investment banking is overstaffed and overpaid. The bill for traders, advisers and money managers at seven global firms needs to drop by about $30 bln, a Breakingviews calculator shows, to give shareholders a shot at decent returns on equity.

U.S. banking overhaul gets a second wind

Two years after Dodd-Frank thudded onto desks across Wall Street, regulators are on the stump with ideas from the cutting-room floor. Fresh on the heels of the hoopla to break up banks, the Fed’s top cop is pushing to cap their size. Too big to fail clearly hasn’t been resolved.