By Agnes T. Crane
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

Chris Christie’s budding bromance with Barack Obama may grow even stronger. New Jersey’s Republican governor, who praised the president as they surveyed superstorm devastation together last week, faces a Sandy-related revenue hit that will make it hard to balance the budget, as mandated by the state constitution. That could leave Christie stealing a page from Obama’s election playbook.

By Agnes T. Crane
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

Bank of America boss Brian Moynihan can’t ignore the regime change at cross-town rival Citigroup. His three years in the corner office is less than Vikram Pandit had, but he faces the same challenges to boost performance. BofA’s third-quarter return on equity of just 6.3 percent is a case in point. While improving, Moynihan needs to do more before he, too, clashes with his board and shareholders.
 
The results weren’t as bad as implied by the dismal $340 million headline profit reported on Wednesday. One-offs like the $1.9 billion charge for the bank’s improving credit quality and a $1.6 billion hit for litigation costs, including the settlement of the Merrill Lynch class action suit, took a big bite out of earnings.

By Agnes T. Crane
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

The Libor scandal is still in search of victims. Now a group of U.S. homeowners has accused 12 banks of booking illicit profit from nudging the London Interbank Offered Rate benchmark higher. Bringing Main Street into the affair could add to political pressure for tougher regulation. Even so, it’s hard to see how more than a tiny amount of harm was done.

By Agnes T. Crane
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

JPMorgan’s solid third quarter has put Jamie Dimon back on track. The U.S. bank’s boss had $5.7 billion of profit in the quarter to crow about – a third more than a year ago. His standing took a drubbing earlier this year after dodgy hedging transactions, known as the whale trades, cost the firm about $6 billion. Now he can breathe easier. But one good report doesn’t bust the ghost of the whale.

By Agnes T. Crane
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

The push to overhaul the U.S. banking sector is getting a second wind. Two years after the 848-page Dodd-Frank financial reform act thudded onto desks across Wall Street, regulators, politicians and even banking grandees are back out on the stump talking up ideas that were left on the cutting-room floor. Fresh on the heels of the hoopla to break up banks, the Federal Reserve’s top cop is advocating capping their size. It’s increasingly evident that too big to fail remains too big a concern.

By Agnes T. Crane
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

Wells Fargo is stuck in the mortgage mire, just like other big U.S. lenders. Warren Buffett’s favorite bank trades at a premium to U.S. rivals like Bank of America and JPMorgan, partly thanks to a carefully cultivated “not Wall Street” image. But the West Coast bank had no trouble cooking up its own questionable home loans during the housing boom.

By Agnes T. Crane and Richard Beales
The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own. 

“Don’t fight the Fed,” the saying goes. The U.S. Federal Reserve is promising ultra-low interest rates into 2015. Yet the buildup of low-yielding debt on financial firms’ balance sheets means they may suffer badly if rates jump. The central bank aside, prudent bosses – and their watchdogs – need to ensure they are avoiding fights with history, too.