By Jeffrey Goldfarb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Marissa Mayer has made her mark on Yahoo in less than a year. The website chief’s $1.1 billion deal to buy blogging site Tumblr on Monday goes a long way to restoring the faded and vainglorious exclamation point to the company’s name.

By Jeffrey Goldfarb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

John Stumpf may be easing his way onto the soapbox. The Wells Fargo chief executive runs the biggest U.S. bank by market value, at $210 billion, but has kept a lower profile than many of his peers. Lately, though, he has been critiquing regulation more, tiptoeing into a role filled until recently by JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon.

By Jeffrey Goldfarb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Carl Icahn may have a secret admirer. The uppity billionaire fired his latest salvo in the battle over Dell late last week, proposing a half-baked leveraged recapitalization. The plan could be a ploy to get Silver Lake Partners and founder Michael Dell to sweeten their $24.4 billion bid. It’s hard not to wonder, though, if the buyout firm isn’t quietly rooting for Icahn.

By Jeffrey Goldfarb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist the opinions expressed are his own.

By taking a big bite out of the American stock market, Apple is inadvertently seeding the appetite for equity. While the iPad maker’s recently supersized $50 billion buyback program may be unique in its scale as the largest of all time, it also typifies one of the big challenges facing investors seeking to deploy their money.

By Jeffrey Goldfarb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Former junk bond king Michael Milken has more leverage than ever. Three decades after mastering the art of raising money, the man whose indictment on securities violations brought down Drexel Burnham Lambert now trades more heavily in intellectual capital.

By Jeffrey Goldfarb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Cracking down on M&A leaks may only make them more tempting. Merger practitioners say fresh research showing that news is trickling out less often about companies for sale can partly be attributed to tougher rules and enforcement. Though loose lips come with less chance of deals closing, they also coincide with much higher premiums. Some bankers will always fancy that mix of risk and reward.

By Jeffrey Goldfarb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Even losers could emerge as winners from the Dell takeover battle. Blackstone Group, Silver Lake Partners, the Dell board and founder Michael Dell could stand to benefit from the impression of a hard-fought auction. A Potemkin fight, if that’s what it turns out to be, just may not help shareholders quite so much.