Goldman Profit Soars (WSJ) "While economic conditions remained challenging for much of last year, the strengths of our business model and client franchise, coupled with our focus on disciplined management, delivered solid performance for our shareholders," Chief Executive Lloyd C. Blankfein said. Overall, the investment-banking arm recorded revenue of $1.41 billion for the quarter, up from $857 million a year ago and $1.16 billion in the third quarter. Financial advisory revenue rose 8.1% from year ago. Debt underwriting revenue surged to $593 million from $196 million in the year ago and the $466 million reported in the third quarter. Equity underwriting revenue popped 59% from the year ago and 61% from the prior quarter to $304 million. Revenue from fixed income, currency and commodity trading totaled $2.04 billion, versus $1.36 billion a year earlier and $2.22 billion in the third quarter. Revenue from equities execution rose 45% from a year ago to $764 million but fell 10% from the third quarter. Overall profit for the fourth quarter totaled $2.89 billion, compared with a year-earlier profit of $1.01 billion. Earnings per share, reflecting the payment of preferred dividends, jumped to $5.60 from $1.84. Net revenue, including net interest income, surged 53% to $9.24 billion. JPMorgan Profit Tops Estimates (WSJ) JPMorgan's fourth-quarter earnings surged 53% on strong revenue and better credit, as the bank further detailed the fallout from more than $6 billion in trading losses last year. The outsized, complex trades on credit default swaps tied to corporate bonds became known as the "London Whale." On Wednesday, the bank made public an internal report outlining mistakes and oversights by executives who played a role in the matter, including Chief Investment Officer Ina Drew, who has since left the bank, and Douglas Braunstein, who was chief financial officer during the episode and has since become a vice chairman. It also said its Treasury and Chief Investment Office, where the "Whale" trades were made, recorded a loss of $157 million on the fourth quarter, compared to net income of $417 million in the year ago. J.P. Morgan also said it halved the 2012 compensation of Chief Executive James Dimon to $11.5 million. Additionally, he will have to wait up to another 18 months before he can start exercising two million options that were awarded to him five years ago. Overall, J.P. Morgan reported a profit of $5.69 billion, or $1.39 a share, for the fourth quarter, up from $3.73 billion, or 90 cents a share, a year ago. Bankers Get IOUs Instead Of Bonus Cash (WSJ) Several thousand Morgan Stanley traders, investment bankers and other employees will get IOUs instead of cash when bonus day arrives Thursday, a fundamental change in Wall Street pay triggered by the financial crisis. The New York company will pay its bonuses in four equal installments, according to people briefed on the plan, with the first chunk coming in May and the last in January 2016. Employees who quit or are laid off before the payments stand to lose their deferred compensation unless they negotiate a separate deal with the company. "I don't think there will be a lot of cheers on the trading floors of Morgan Stanley," said Mark Williams, a former Federal Reserve bank examiner who now teaches at Boston University. "Bonuses were used to buy houses and cars. They were savings vehicles." AIG Seeks Approval To File More Bank Suits (NYT) Since the summer of 2011, the insurance giant American International Group has been battling Bank of America over claims that the bank packaged and sold it defective mortgages that dealt A.I.G. billions of dollars in losses. Now A.I.G. wants to be able to sue other banks that sold it mortgage-backed securities that plunged in value during the financial crisis. It has not said which banks, but possibilities include Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. But to sue, A.I.G. first must win a court fight with an entity controlled by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which the insurer says is blocking its efforts to pursue the banks that caused it financial harm. Hungary Attacks Roubini Over Currency 'Advice' (CNBC) Hungary's Ministry for National Economy said in a statement that the forint began to depreciate after economist Nouriel Roubini – dubbed Dr Doom for his pessimistic forecasts – said in a newsletter that failure to secure a deal with the International Monetary Fund was bad news for the currency. The forint has been in decline since last week hitting seven-month lows earlier this week but has since gained some ground. Hungarian officials rounded on Roubini saying; "On Thursday speculators seem to have taken Roubini's advice and attacked the forint." BofA Takes A Mortgage Mulligan (WSJ) Less than two years after embarking on a painful retreat from home lending, Bank of America Corp. is girding for a new run at the U.S. mortgage business. Whether that gamble pays off will depend in large measure on how long the mortgage market's run of record profits continues. The Charlotte, N.C., company aims to sell more mortgages through its 5,000-plus branches, executives said. The fourth-biggest U.S. mortgage lender, after Wells Fargo & Co., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and U.S. Bancorp, is intent on "growing that business," Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said at a December investor conference. Eurozone Plan May Be Watered Down (WSJ) One of the euro zone's most significant commitments last year aimed at containing its financial crisis—a plan to allow the bloc's bailout fund to directly boost the capital of banks in countries facing debt troubles—could be undermined by technical complications and second thoughts by some governments. Germany Repatriates Gold Reserves (WSJ) Germany's central bank said it would remove nearly a fifth of its total gold reserves from deposits at the New York Federal Reserve Bank and the Bank of France and bring them back to Germany, amid a debate in the country over the transparency of its global gold holdings. Inside Trader Sent To Kinnu-can (NYP) John Kinnucan, the former head of Portland, Ore.-based firm Broadband Research, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison after admitting to feeding illegal stock tips to his well-heeled hedge fund clients. Reporter fired for secret stripping job gets new journalism gig with same (NYDN) Tressler, 30, is now a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, covering “cops, crime and general mayhem,” according to her Twitter account. In April, the gorgeous Tressler was fired from her job as a society reporter for the Houston Chronicle for failing to tell the newspaper about her after-hours gig as a stripper, which she chronicled in her blog, “Diary of an Angry Stripper.” Tressler then sued her former employer's parent company, the Hearst Corp., which also owns the Express-News, alleging that the firing was unfair. She hired celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred and filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying the paper’s reason for firing her -- failing to write on her application that she had been working part-time as a stripper -- was ridiculous. "I've worked at KB Toys. I've worked at a surf shop. I've worked at multiple coffee shops. I've worked at Taco Bell. I've worked as a line cook at a restaurant," Tressler told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in June. “Do you really want me to put every single one of those on my job application?" Over the summer, Tressler embarked on a national stripping tour and pushed a book, which shared the same title as her blog. She also picked up some freelance assignments for “Good Morning America.” After the suit and the tour, it seemed unlikely Tressler would re-enter Texas journalism, let alone for a newspaper owned by the same parent company that fired her. Some have suspected that her new job was part of a settlement she reached with the company.

Questions Cloud Market Reopening (WSJ) The New York Stock Exchange said Tuesday that it plans to open as usual at 9:30 a.m. and that its trading floor and headquarters in lower Manhattan were "fully operational" despite widespread blackouts and flooding in that part of the city. The Nasdaq Stock Market and other exchanges will open as well. Bond markets will follow suit. While investors and industry officials breathed a sigh of relief, critics argued that the storm exposed how ill-prepared exchanges and their Wall Street customers are for such an event. Regulators on Tuesday said they plan to probe whether more needs to be done to get exchanges and the trading community ready for such disasters. After Hurricane, Wall Street Back To Work (Dealbook) On Tuesday, the scene around Wall Street was desolate. While the New York Exchange’s building appeared to be unscathed, many other offices in the vicinity were flooded. After an underground parking garage two blocks from the exchange was inundated with water, several cars floated to street level. Two Citigroup buildings were without power. The bank told employees in a memo on Tuesday that one of the buildings, 111 Wall Street, sustained “severe flooding and will be out of commission for several weeks.” Some JPMorgan Chase employees outside New York City were working in central New Jersey. At the bank’s main trading floor in Midtown Manhattan, employees, many in jeans, shirts and rain boots, booked hotels for the night and discussed strategy. The bank, which sustained minimal damages at a building downtown, expected to resume normal operations in Midtown. Credit Suisse also planned to open for business on Wednesday, with its main offices by Madison Square Park running on backup power. In downtown New York, Goldman Sachs was one of the few buildings with power. The firm has a generator in the event of outages, allowing its trading floors to continue to run. On Tuesday, televisions sets and lights inside the building were on, although few employees were there...In a memo to staff, Goldman announced its headquarters would be open on Wednesday. The firm also booked hotels in various locations to make sure employees could get to work. Deutsche Bank Rides Debt-Market Wave (WSJ) Deutsche Bank reported a surge in investment-banking revenues in the third quarter as a rebound in client activity fueled the best quarter ever for its fixed-income division. Deutsche Bank, Europe's largest lender by assets, reported group revenues of €8.7 billion ($11.5 billion), up 19% from the third quarter last year. The result was better than analysts expected, but the bank's legal problems and restructuring efforts nearly flattened net income. At €747 million, the total was up 3% from €725 million a year earlier. The bank's revenue increase was driven in part by bond-buying initiatives announced by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank in recent months. The moves have fueled a resurgence in client activity, including in fixed-income trading—an area where UBS AG and other competitors have announced significant cut backs, allowing Deutsche Bank to gain market share. UBS Moves Quickly On Job Cuts, Revamp (WSJ) Scores of traders at UBS were locked out of the Swiss bank's London offices Tuesday as the institution moved quickly to implement the first of thousands of job cuts in a strategic restructuring. The revamp effectively brings an end to UBS's attempts over the past two decades to build a world-class investment bank, which brought the institution to the brink of collapse in 2008 when it incurred more than $50 billion in losses from the fixed-income business that it is now exiting. Instead, UBS's strategy will center on its private bank, the world's second-largest in assets after Bank of America and a mainstay of the group's earnings. UBS confirmed Tuesday that it will cut risk-weighted assets by around 100 billion Swiss francs ($107 billion) by the end of 2017, eliminate about 10,000 jobs across the bank and reorganize its investment bank to deliver more products and services to ultra-wealthy clients at the private bank. The bank also said Tuesday that charges related to the moves, which come in response to a tougher regulatory and economic climate, helped push it into the red in the third quarter. UBS Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti said that London would bear the brunt of the cuts as the bank attempts to exit almost completely from fixed-income activities and move back to its wealth-management roots. Storm Cripples US East Coast, Death and Damage Toll Climb (CNBC) The U.S. death toll climbed to 50, according to The Associated Press, with many of the victims killed by falling trees. Damage estimates reached into the tens of billions, while the storm disrupted campaigning and early voting ahead of the November 6 presidential election. More than 8.2 million households were without power in 17 states as far west as Michigan. Nearly 2 million of those were in New York, where large swaths of lower Manhattan lost electricity and entire streets ended up under water. New York Subway System Faces Weeks to Recover From Storm (Bloomberg) If you laid the New York City subway system in a line, it would stretch from New York to Detroit. Now imagine inspecting every inch of that track. That’s the job ahead for Metropolitan Transit Administration officials, who must examine 600 miles of track and the electrical systems with it before they can fully reopen the largest U.S. transit system, which took a direct hit by Hurricane Sandy. Seven subway tunnels under New York’s East River flooded, MTA officials said. Pumping them out could take days, and a 2011 state study said it could take three weeks after hurricane- driven flooding to get back to 90 percent of normal operations. That study forecast damages of $50 billion to $55 billion to transportation infrastructure including the subways. How CEOs Improvised In The Wake Of Sandy (WSJ) When the approach of Hurricane Sandy left Lands' End Chief Executive Edgar Huber stranded on a business trip, he retreated to an impromptu backup headquarters—in his mother-in-law's apartment complex...Foot Locker CEO Ken Hicks disregarded the shutdown of his New York headquarters on Monday and worked at his office until 3 p.m. Then he picked up the work again six blocks away at his home in Manhattan's Murray Hill neighborhood. When the power went out, he put on iTunes, lit a lantern and did paperwork for another 2½ hours. "You can be reasonably self-sufficient with a cellphone and a lantern," the CEO says. Celebrities React To Northeast Hurricane (NYDN) “WHY is everyone in SUCH a panic about hurricane (i’m calling Sally)...?” Lindsay Lohan tweeted Sunday night. “Stop projecting negativity! Think positive and pray for peace.” A Year Later, All Eyes Still On 'Edie' (WSJ) Who broke the law by raiding customer accounts at MF Global Holdings? Investigators seem no closer to the answer than they were when the New York brokerage firm filed for bankruptcy exactly a year ago Wednesday, owing thousands of farmers and ranchers, hedge funds and other investors an estimated $1.6 billion. Their money was supposed to be stashed safely at MF Global, but company officials used much of it for margin calls and other obligations. The last, best hope for a breakthrough in the probe is Edith O'Brien, the former assistant treasurer at MF Global. Working in the company's Chicago office, she was the go-to person for emergency money transfers as MF Global flailed for its life. MBA's Rethink Wall Street (WSJ) Many of the nation's top M.B.A. programs, including Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business, reported declines in the share of students who took jobs in finance this year. And even those that posted some gains, such as University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, are still well below their prefinancial crisis levels...A Wall Street gig "isn't as prestigious as it used to be" because the future—promotion opportunities, salary gains, even basic job security— is so unclear, says Mark Brostoff, associate dean and director of the career center at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. Though the share of Olin students going into finance increased to 22% of job seekers this year from 15% in 2011, many of those gains came at boutique and regional Midwestern financial firms rather than on Wall Street. One factor affecting student demand: Banks expect young staffers to pick up the slack left by masses of laid-off midlevel employees, without necessarily offering more generous pay packages in return for the long hours. At Harvard Business School, for example, students heading into investment banking—7% of job seekers who accepted jobs, down from 10% in 2011—reported median salaries and signing bonuses were flat with last year, at $100,000 and $40,000, respectively, while other guaranteed compensation fell to $8,750 from $40,000. Disney $4 Billion ‘Star Wars’ Deal Spotlights Content Bet (Bloomberg) Walt Disney agreed to buy George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion, pressing Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger’s $15 billion bet on creative franchises by adding “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones.” Lucas, 68, the sole owner, will get half in cash and the rest in stock, making him a major investor in the film, theme park and TV company, according to a statement yesterday from Burbank, California-based Disney. The first of a new trilogy of “Star Wars” films will be released in 2015, Disney said. France Can’t Compete With Rest of Europe: WTO Chief (CNBC) France is uncompetitive not only versus China, but against the rest of Europe, according to Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization. “The competitiveness of France on foreign markets has been damaged for the last 10 years. This is nowhere more obvious than in Europe, where France has lost market share for the last 10 years,” said Lamy in an exclusive interview with CNBC in Paris. Cop Tasers 10 Year-Old For Refusing To Clean His Car (CN) A New Mexico policeman Tasered a 10-year-old child on a playground because the boy refused to clean his patrol car, the boy claims in court. Guardian ad litem Rachel Higgins sued the New Mexico Department of Public Safety and Motor Transportation Police Officer Chris Webb on behalf of the child, in Santa Fe County Court. Higgins claims Webb used his Taser on the boy, R.D., during a May 4 "career day" visit to Tularosa New Mexico Intermediate School. "Defendant Webb asked the boy, R.D., in a group of boys, who would like to clean his patrol unit," the complaint states. "A number of boys said that they would. R.D., joking, said that he did not want to clean the patrol unit. "Defendant Webb responded by pointing his Taser at R.D. and saying, 'Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.'" Webb then shot "two barbs into R.D.'s chest," the complaint states. "Both barbs penetrated the boy's shirt, causing the device to deliver 50,000 volts into the boy's body.