Barclays Profit Drops, Capital Remains Strong (MarketWatch)
The bank said pretax profit was down 76% at 327 million pounds ($527 million) after it booked a £947 million charge in its Barclays Capital investment-banking arm on the changing value of its own debt. Excluding that charge and a smaller charge a year earlier, Barclays said pretax profit dropped 28% to £1.27 billion. Chief Executive John Varley also moved to reassure investors about the bank’s capital position, saying Barclays is “well equipped to deal with regulatory changes” as the new capital rules known as Basel III are phased in.

Morgan Stanley Topped $100 Million On One Day Trading In Quarter (Bloomberg)
That represents lowest number of $100 million days since 2006. MS made more than $100 million in trading revenue on 18 days in last year’s third quarter. The firm’s trading division lost money on 10 days during the quarter, compared with five days a year earlier, according to a filing yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Fed Action Gets an Unexpected Endorsement From India (NYT)
“A strong, robust, fast-growing United States is in the interests of the world,” said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “And therefore, anything that would stimulate the underlying growth and policies of entrepreneurship in the United States would help the cause of global prosperity.”

Papaconstantinou Says EU Budget Cuts May `Choke Off Growth’ (Bloomberg)
“I am not one of those who thinks all the European countries should press on the brakes and do deficit reduction in the way that would choke off growth,” Papaconstantinou said at an event in London late yesterday. “There is a story to be told, whereby some countries have to do serious deficit belt- tightening, others less so…I worry very much if we simply all get into a situation where we are forced by markets to reduce our deficits,” it may “lead to a double-dip recession,” he said.

Junk-Bond Sellers Find Risk Too High (WSJ)
Mr. Makhija is among a growing number of hedge funds and other professional investors that are getting out of junk bonds and buying assets like mortgage debt and stocks instead. As they exit, mom-and-pop investors are flooding in, along with mutual funds that are usually dedicated to other investments, like stocks and government debt. All are lured by the outsize returns delivered by the junk-bond market over the past 18 months amid tepid gains in stocks and rock-bottom yields on Treasurys.

BP May Pay Billions for `Missed Signals’ That Led to Disaster (Bloomberg)
“BP has a broader corporate culture that does put profits ahead of safety, and that message permeates throughout the company and down through the rank and file,” Uhlmann said in a telephone interview. “BP will still have to pay tens of billions of dollars in natural resources damages and compensation to victims for economic losses.”

Kanye West Performs During Delta Flight (Billboard)
“He was like, ‘Yo, this your n***a, Kanye,’” a passenger said. “Then he couldn’t decide if he wanted to do ‘Good Life’ or ‘Gold Digger,’ so he was like, ‘I’ll just do a little bit of both.’ It was awesome… but I still have no idea how he got into the cockpit.”

Doctor In Insider Case Worked For Guidepoint Global (WSJ)
According to compliance policies on its website and interviews with health-care experts who consult for the New York firm, Guidepoint has strict rules forbidding its consultants from disclosing confidential information learned while advising clinical trials. So what Yves Benhamou did for Frontpoint would in fact be frowned on.

The Return Of The Risk Arbs (Dealbook)
Heidi Moore: So far this year, there has been a noticeable boom: nearly 40 banks and financial companies have started or expanded teams to advise hedge funds, according to an analyst at a major firm.

How A Fraud’s Value Affects Prison Time (WSJ)
The dispute is part of a growing debate over whether the sentencing system for white-collar crimes has come to rely too heavily on calculations of financial losses to fraud victims. Under the sentencing guidelines, legal experts say, an executive of a large public company convicted of a crime like securities fraud could be sentenced to life imprisonment on a first offense.

PIMCO’s El-Erian: Fed’s Move Is ‘Not Enough’ (Dealbook)
Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco’s chief executive, said in an interview with Dealbook that the Federal Reserve’s decision to buy up to $600 billion in government bonds does not go far enough. The plan…could reduce the risk of deflation and a double-dip recession, but will fail to overcome an “unusual” period of low growth and stubbornly high unemployment that may linger for years.