So the long awaited and much anticipated correction to global markets finally came to pass. Although, if you had been away for an autumn mini-break, you would have missed all the action.

Perhaps the most interesting story of the month was the news that Paul Taubman was selling his recently formed corporate finance firm, PJT Partners, to Blackstone, and that Blackstone would spin off its entire advisory arm in to a standalone entity. Ostensibly this is a good thing as Blackstone, which manages over $200 billion of assets in private equity and real estate, is often accused by advisory clients of having conflicts of interest. The new advisory entity will still be 65% owned by Blackstone, so I’m not convinced this new structure answers the conflict of interest criticism. But perhaps I’m missing something.

It has been a difficult year for big European and American banks. But then come to think of it, none of the years since the demise of Lehman Brothers in 2008 have been easy for them. That makes six full years that banks have been in the doghouse. In the first few following the crisis, they were derided as greedy, evil rogues who had nearly crippled the global economy.

In the past, it has been forced by regulators to raise capital unexpectedly. Nevertheless, as far as I am concerned, Credit Suisse is stuck in the middle of nowhere and has lost a huge amount of momentum since the tumultuous crisis era, when, ironically, it looked like the smart kid on the block. I have lost count of how many senior management re-organizations chief executive Brady Dougan has announced that juggle the same, long-serving employees but don’t seem to move the business forward. In mid-October, yet another Credit Suisse investment banking re-jig crossed the wires. Jim Amine and Tim O’Hara have been promoted to lead the division jointly with Gael de Boissard. They will join the executive board. Eric Varvel, who previously co-headed investment banking with de Boissard, changes his role to chairman of the bank’s Asia Pacific and Middle East regions. Amine, (advisory), O’Hara (equities), and de Boissard (fixed income) will each continue to look after their original areas of focus.

This month, this column is all about investment management. For as long as I can remember, investment bankers and traders have been the rock and roll stars of the financial world.

I was intrigued to see that Blackstone, the leading private equity firm, is disengaging from Russia.

European financial markets were shaken in September by the sudden death of Emilio Botín, the chairman of Banco Santander.

The month of August is supposed to bring peace of mind to busy bankers: the frenetic pace of markets diminishes and the bosses depart for their villas in Tuscany or mansions in the Hamptons.

For those of you who were dozing on the beach this summer, with your smart-phones switched off, a leading Portuguese bank was restructured in August and no one, least of all the regulators, seems to have forewarned us of this impending disaster.

As regular readers might remember, I have long been worried about the inflationary impact of the extraordinary zero interest-rate policy which central banks have foisted on us.

A hedge fund manager came to see me recently and we talked about the state of the market. As US equity indices hover near all-time highs, cynicism prevails.

UBS was named Euromoney’s best global bank for 2014 at the awards dinner, held at London’s Natural History Museum. Having attended nine such dinners in my role as a columnist for Euromoney, I was struck by how restrained the atmosphere in the room was.

L’Roubi may be a chameleon when it comes to his sartorial mores but Bank of England governor, Mark Carney resembles a chameleon when it comes to his views on UK interest rates.

Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, has firmly rebuffed the bears and those who believed in him made a fortune with timely purchases of periphery European bonds and stock markets.

Jenkins is at a dead-end. This is what happens when you have no strategy and just muddle through instead of taking the necessary and painful decisions.

Shades of Gwyneth and Chris: Simon Robey and Simon Warshaw consciously uncoupled from Simon Robertson.

There is a whiff of hysteria haunting markets. Many of the big players have found themselves wrong-footed. The sands are shifting, and it’s difficult to know who or what to trust.

In April, it was also announced that Barclays would scale back its commodity trading operation. I have written about Barclays’ chief executive, Antony Jenkins, in recent columns and how the supposed new broom is lurching from one pitfall to the next.

Another banker whose surname begins with “M” hit the headlines in April. Blythe Masters, the veteran JPMorgan banker, left the US firm.

Some have dubbed Antony Jenkins' reign at Barclays a work in transition. To me, it is undoubtedly a mess in transition.

By coincidence, also in February, Euromoney hosted its annual awards dinner for the private banking industry and Tom Kalaris, Barclays’ former head of wealth management, sat at the top table. Kalaris resigned from Barclays last June. I have always liked Tom and will watch with interest how his career progresses. The compere for the dinner was Alastair Campbell, director of communications from 1997 to 2003 for prime minister Tony Blair. Campbell offered one key nugget of advice to the group of assembled financiers: "In order to win the public relations battle, you have to convince public opinion that banks and bankers provide a real service that individuals and the economy need." Obviously, Campbell is correct, but is anyone listening in the banks’ luxurious executive suites?

I hear that an article published recently by Reuters is causing waves at Morgan Stanley. The thrust of the piece – entitled ‘Wall Street’s most eligible banker Fleming waits for a suitor’ – is that 50-year-old Greg Fleming, the head of Morgan Stanley’s wealth and investment management business, might succeed James Gorman as chief executive. According to the piece, Fleming is also a flight risk as he possesses the talents to be chief executive of another financial firm.

The question I would want to know, were I a Euromoney reader, is: what is really going on out there? Is the world healing? Has it healed? Or indeed, has the world healed so completely that we are now about to suffer another bout of illness?

The financial landscape is changing and certain macro themes are beginning to emerge.

Against this confusing backdrop, life goes on. A friend who is a senior banker in Asia reports that during a brief visit to London he arranged to meet one of his best clients, an Indian tycoon, at Claridge’s Hotel for tea. Suddenly, the wife of the tycoon jumped up and started embracing what appeared to be an elderly gentleman. "How are you?" she exclaimed. "What are you doing now? We’ve missed you."

Given I am writing this column in December just before the magazine closes for Christmas – I have been pondering what presents I would give certain bank chief executives.

Anyway, back to Switzerland and the Swiss banks. Things do appear to be stabilizing at UBS. Sergio Ermotti was appointed chief executive in late 2011 and a year later he installed the long-term Merrill Lynch banker Andrea Orcel as head of UBS’s investment bank. UBS underwent an epiphany and scaled its fixed-income division back drastically. The new focus was to be wealth management and corporate finance, which would hopefully flourish untainted by scandals in the fixed-income division. However, in the third quarter of 2013, UBS suffered a setback. The bank announced that it would delay, by at least a year, its aim to reach a 15% group return-on-equity target. This retreat was due to an unexpected demand from the Swiss regulator, Finma, requiring UBS to set aside more capital against "known and unknown litigation".

Someone else who also recently stepped down is Sir Hector Sants, the former head of compliance at Barclays. Sants, a one-time Credit Suisse banker, ran the wholesale division of the British regulatory authority, the Financial Services Authority, from 2004 to 2007. He was then promoted to run the whole organization, which he did until the FSA was dismantled in the middle of 2012.

It was a dank, dark autumn morning. My alarm shrilled and I stumbled into the kitchen to brew a pitch-black espresso. On auto-pilot, I reached over and switched on CNBC. Someone was lamenting the most recent "disappointing" set of Credit Suisse earnings. "Same old, same old," I thought to myself as I grumpily switched off the television.

I was interested that the renowned banker James Leigh-Pemberton, who used to head Credit Suisse’s UK operations, left the bank late last year to become chairman designate of UK Financial Investments, the British government unit that manages the taxpayer shareholdings in Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Just in case you thought that Abigail with attitude dinners are occasions for hot air and posturing, I would remind you of the deal, finalized this November, in which Aberdeen Asset Management purchased Scottish Widows from Lloyds Banking Group. Well, the chief executives of Lloyds and Aberdeen – António Horta-Osório and Martin Gilbert – first met at a Euromoney dinner two years ago.

I am a worried woman. I am starting to see bubbles everywhere, and it’s not easy to work out how to protect oneself. I am not alone. In mid-November, the cover of the respected Barron’s financial magazine had one word emblazoned on it: “Bubble?”

One banker – although I use the term loosely – who might be wishing his mother could get him out of trouble is the Reverend Paul Flowers. This story has me spellbound. It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Flowers, who is now known by the sobriquet of the ‘Crystal Methodist’, was the chairman of Co-op bank which is owned by the Co-op Group, a mutual institution. Mutual institutions are owned by their depositors or policyholders and are not publicly listed on the UK stock exchange. I have to admit that until now the Abigail with attitude column has not focused its piercing gaze on the Co-op. This was a big mistake. The bank has been revealed as a cesspit of scandal and impropriety and it could well drag some big establishment figures down with it.

Autumn is a wistful season: the balmy summer days redolent of hope are behind us. We wince at the prospect of grey winter and another year drawing to its close. The autumn is often a tricky and tumultuous period for markets. Some of us still remember the 1987 equity market crash. This occurred on October 19 when the Dow lost over 500 points and 22% of its value evaporated.

And talking of Goldman, I have to admit to being surprised at how mediocre its third-quarter earnings were. In mid-October, the firm announced that revenue in fixed income, currency and commodities fell some 45% to $1.25 billion. This was a bigger drop than that experienced by rival flow houses. Goldman’s third-quarter net income was actually flat at $1.4 billion because the firm cut remuneration costs. Revenues fell to $6.7 billion from $8.4 billion a year earlier.

October also saw a changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. By which I mean, after more than 30 years, Paul Tucker, deputy governor of the Bank of England, left the Bank for a teaching post at Harvard. Tucker, who was widely viewed as the likely successor to the dour Lord King, lost out to Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.

As September draws to a close, I am starting to wonder if I am living in a parallel universe. Ben Bernanke seems to have gone barmy. And I wouldn’t blame him. Saving the financial world from itself has been a Herculean task.

Is Bank of America on an upward trajectory? Am I the only person to notice that Bank of America’s economists were a lone voice insisting that the Federal Reserve would not taper in September? Nice call BAML!

And talking of Lehman’s bankruptcy, I was intrigued to read an opinion editorial in the Financial Times written by Bob Diamond, the former chief executive of Barclays Bank. Bob of course pounced on the corpse of Lehman Brothers as it was drowning and made off with a succulent limb: the US broker-dealer operations.

It has been an oddly eerie summer. Everybody seems to have fled to the beach, leaving a few journalists to eke out the occasional interesting story.

Policymakers continue to lavish liquidity on the western world. It will be a long time before short-term money-market rates normalize in the US, the UK, Germany or Australia.

Much has changed since I used to work in the City. It is out with the autocratic, eccentric banking demigod (think Dick Fuld or Ken Lewis) and in with the omnipotent regulator. It is out with brash, macho money-making and in with a more cuddly approach to deal-doing. Think of the industry’s greatest survivor, Lloyd Blankfein, his sprouting of facial hair and passionate advocacy of gay rights. See my April 2013 column for more on Loveable Lloyd’s transformation.

Ackermann has experienced the chill of unwelcome publicity in recent days but how, I wonder, does Jamie Dimon feel when every day seems to bring another cloud, if not a hailstorm? I have written recently about how Jamie’s halo has become tarnished.

Bob Wigley, a former chairman of Merrill Lynch EMEA, might also appreciate a large tumbler of Scotch. Wigley, who left the US investment bank after it was devoured by Bank of America in 2009, became chairman of Hibu, the former Yellow Pages printed directory of local businesses, some four years ago.

The 2013 Euromoney Awards for excellence dinner, held in early July, was a glittering affair. Finally, it seems, the tide might have turned in the financial industry. The room was thronged and financiers had travelled from Africa, Albania and even supposedly impoverished Greece to attend the event. The guest speaker was the former UK Member of Parliament Gyles Brandreth, who was both entertaining and enthusiastic. Guests raised over £780,000 ($1.2 million) for the nominated charity, Action against Cancer, which is researching a new treatment for the disease.

I’m not sure if the words ‘good corporate governance’ exist in the Russian language. But I was slightly bemused to read that John Mack, the former CEO of Morgan Stanley, had been appointed, in June, to the board of Rosneft, the Russian oil and gas company. The state owns some 70% of Rosneft. This strikes me as an odd job for a former red-blooded baron of Wall Street capitalism. Meanwhile Mack was also named to the board of Glencore Xstrata in June.

There are some macro events in the next few years that will influence how the British economy goes and how British banking shares perform. The two most important for me are the fate of the Conservative-led coalition government at the May 2015 elections and whether or not the UK remains in the European Union. If the Conservatives stay in power and the UK stays in the EU, things should be fine. If either of these things does not happen, I would expect British banking shares to suffer. The UK chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, might well experience a warm glow when he contemplates his investment in Lloyds Banking Group, but I have no doubt he scowls as he ponders the quagmire that RBS represents. The UK taxpayer has an 80% stake in RBS and there is no clear exit strategy in sight. Indeed, since the chief executive, Stephen Hester, was unceremoniously elbowed aside last month, the bank has resembled a rudderless wreck, listing from side to side. "Amateur central," a source sniffed. "Sacking the chief executive when you have no clear successor in place is pure folly."

I am pleased to relate that finally JPMorgan is moving towards some semblance of seemly corporate governance. Perhaps senior management have been reading the Abigail with attitude column. I have been criticizing the makeup of the bank’s board since July 2009 when I wrote: ‘I find the JPMorgan board intriguing in that, although the members are impressive in their respective fields, few have in-depth financial expertise. JPMorgan is doing well today, but should it stumble the board will be scrutinized.’ I renewed my call for better corporate governance in May this year when certain investors were agitating for Jamie Dimon to split his chief executive and chairman roles. I correctly predicted that the rebellion would blow over: ‘My bet is that Dimon stays and investors back down.’ However, I did suggest that some long-standing directors with little direct financial experience – such as Ellen Futter – should go.

Are we experiencing a bout of the summer doldrums? The high-adrenaline events of previous years have dwindled to an unsatisfactory dribble.

Edward Gibbon wrote about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and, for a few years now, I have been thinking about whether London can continue its dominance as an important financial centre. I am starting to think that we might be witnessing the decline and fall of the London empire. In a way, London is a city-state which bears little resemblance to the rest of the country. The European Banking Authority has become a Rottweiler and is insisting that, from next year, any banker who earns more than €500,000 will be affected by a EU-wide bonus cap. Such employees will have variable pay restricted to the same level as salary, or twice that level with explicit shareholder approval.

In late June, I attended the International Capital Market Association’s dinner at the Savoy Hotel in London to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Eurobond market. In 1963, the first fixed-rate Eurobond was launched by Autostrade. The issue was $15 million of 5.5% guaranteed bonds due 1972/78. Icma had gathered together an impressive group of market participants from all over the world. Issuers and bankers mingled and reminisced. Euromoney, which was founded in 1969 and has chronicled the development of and the milestones in the Eurobond market, was a sponsor of the dinner. As I scanned the guest list, I saw many familiar names: Cyrus Ardalan, Samir Assaf, Johannes Attems, Allegra Berman, Charlie Berman, Viscount Bridport, Waltraut Burghardt, Lachlan Burn, Maria Cannata, Christopher Carter, David Clark, Nicholas Clegg, Joe Cook, Frank Czichowski. And that brings me to only the fourth letter of the alphabet.

According to Reuters, Crispin Odey, a respected hedge fund manager, took a 5% stake in Man Group last October and increased this further in April when the share price was around 100p, some 20% higher than the current price. Odey is a very astute investor and is admired for buying Barclays’ shares at their post-crunch low in the spring of 2009.

I am sure Jamie Dimon considers the hoo-ha about splitting the chief executive and chairman roles at JPMorgan to be an over-reaction.

Returning to the category of imperial CEOs, most would agree that Bob Diamond, the former Barclays chief, was an earlier poster boy: a Do-it-my-way-or-take-the-highway kind of boss.

A seasoned source told me a few months ago that Diamond’s tenure was abruptly terminated because "He was foreign! In this new era of heightened public scrutiny and domineering regulators," the source sighed, "your cultural values and background have to be aligned with those of the national authorities. If your face doesn’t fit and there’s a setback, you are out. It happened to Bob and it happened to Vikram Pandit at Citi. Anshu Jain, over at Deutsche, needs to watch out."

After my March column had been published, I suffered a pang of writer’s remorse. Had I been too harsh when I criticized the “crony capitalist culture” at Barclays’ investment bank and accused group chief executive Antony Jenkins of hypocrisy?

The European Union’s decision to cap bankers’ bonuses is deeply troubling. Normally, I admonish bankers for making off with too much of shareholders’ money. However, this cap might have serious implications for the way in which European financial institutions compete, as well as the role of London as a main financial centre.

One institution that probably wouldn’t even make the fall-back list for our hypothetical graduate is Nomura. I have written at length about the missteps at the Japanese firm. However, even I was taken aback to read that Italian prosecutors tried to seize some €1.8 billion of assets from Nomura as part of a probe into Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s use of derivatives to hide losses.

Most of us carry scars from the excesses of the debt-fuelled casino days. The acceleration, crash and burn of the 2005-09 period led to lost jobs, dwindling pension pots and puny returns on cash savings. But for some the great financial recession has cast few shadows.

Increasingly however, bankers want to be seen as human beings and not as money machines. I was amused that even Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, is keen to portray a cuddlier image. In March, Blankfein appeared on CBS’s evening news programme espousing the cause of gay marriage.

Some would say that Orcel’s pay package is yet another example of same old, same old. So it was exciting to come across an example of the new paradigm in the financial sector. What do I mean by that over-used phrase? In short, a firm that is doing things differently from the discredited big-bank universal model. I have been seeing the name Berenberg Bank a lot recently: often in connection with research calls on European stocks. My curiosity piqued, I was pleased when a friend introduced me to two of the firm’s senior management. In mid-March, I met Andrew McNally, head of Berenberg Bank UK, and Hendrik Riehmer, a managing partner, to learn more about the business.

April 2013 marks my seventh anniversary with Euromoney. During that time, I have watched, sometimes awe-struck, sometimes gobsmacked, developments in the financial markets. I have written about big banks, hedge funds, asset managers and the twists and turns of politics at these institutions.

In late March, a memorial service was held for Padraic Fallon, the former chairman of Euromoney Institutional Investor, the company that owns Euromoney magazine. Padraic died much too young, at the age of 66, after a battle with cancer.

Trying to change cultures within banking institutions is never easy, which is why Barclays’ new chief executive is taking a hard and seemingly Soviet-era approach at the UK bank. The message is clear: Barclays would now like to be seen as a stodgy commercial bank run by a proselytizing Brit.

I am rapidly becoming an African aficionado. Maybe Barclays’ Jenkins is on the right track in targeting Africa as a key region of growth for Barclays. A mole was at the recent South African mining conference Indaba in Cape Town and reports record attendance and a febrile atmosphere of deal-making.

Ever since Banco Santander was named Euromoney’s bank of the year for 2012, I have been keeping a wary eye on the Spanish lender, which is also Europe’s largest bank. The share price bottomed at approximately €4 around the time of the award. This was the same level reached in March 2009. Since last July, Santander shares rose, phoenix-like, to nearly €6.50 in late January 2013, before falling back a bit. Interestingly, the chart of Santander’s stock price is similar to that of the overall Spanish market (the IBEX 35) which is probably not surprising.

I would like to refrain from carping from the sidelines, but I can’t help myself. Is there not the tiniest bit of hypocrisy in Saint Antony’s finger-wagging? After all, Jenkins was a close colleague of his now unpopular predecessor, Bob Diamond. Before ascending to the chief executive throne, Jenkins ran Barclays’ retail and business banking division. He was appointed to this role in November 2009 and thus became caught up in the tail end of the payment protection insurance scandal. Banks were found to have been selling insurance to clients who had no need of it. To date, Barclays has set aside some £2.6 billion to compensate customers.

"Your e-mail on all these once-upon-a-time masters of the universe, crammed into a first-class cabin, made me laugh. It’s like a rock band who are now a bit past their prime but still want to be loved."

Over in big bad bank land, the going remains tough. Morgan Stanley was the latest bank to announce big job losses. In January, the firm initiated 1,600 job cuts in addition to the large head-count cull that it undertook last year. Apparently, a large number of managing directors and executive directors will be shown the door in both the investment banking and trading areas. No one grieves when an investment banker loses his or her job. But what people are worrying about is a new compensation scheme that Morgan Stanley announced in mid-January whereby employees earning more than $350,000 in total whose bonuses were at least $50,000 would have 100% of their annual bonus deferred over three years. Lower disposable income on Wall Street affects numerous hangers-on lower down the food chain: think estate agents, car dealers, top-end tailors and watchmakers.

In January, we received news that Jes Staley, the former head of JPMorgan’s investment bank, was leaving the firm to join the hedge fund BlueMountain Capital. This story has several interesting aspects.

In the post-credit-crunch world it is clear that there is a role for a trusted adviser, away from the big firms with all their inherent conflicts of interest. However, there are now a lot of smaller corporate finance firms, so it might be hard to find a niche in this new competitive landscape.

"The penny dropped in 2012," a source mused. "It was the year when financiers shed the illusion that their world would come back. In fact, it might be that the years 1998 to 2007 will be viewed as the exception in banking, not the norm."

Against this opaque backdrop, Deutsche Bank seems to be tripping over its own toenails. I admit that during the financial crisis I was one of the few journalists who was critical of the good ship DB. I didn’t like the fact that shortly after Lehman’s collapse, Deutsche posted a surprise third-quarter profit by reclassifying some €25 billion of trading assets under new accounting rules. I also couldn’t understand how a house that had been so big in complex derivative products did not need to raise more capital – although Deutsche did eventually raise capital in late 2010 in association with the takeover of Deutsche Postbank.

It was not only banks that endured a tough 2012. As the year drew to a close, some hedge fund managers were also licking their wounds. An insider-trading probe at top US hedge fund SAC Capital is a concern. In late November 2012, the firm said that it might face civil fraud charges from the SEC. Also in 2012, Raj Gupta, a former main board Goldman Sachs director, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for leaking insider information to his friend, and current prison inmate, Raj Rajaratman, co-founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund. And while we are on the subject of Goldman Sachs, did any devoted readers notice that Pierre-Henri Flamand, the former head of the principal strategies group at the US investment bank, quietly closed his European event-driven hedge fund, Edoma, two years after opening it in London with over $2 billion under management. Investors are said to have been less than enamoured of the former golden boy’s performance after the fund lost some 8% of its value.

For some reason, the phrase “Denial is not a river in Egypt” resounds in my mind.

Brady Dougan is meant to be an excellent manager and people enjoy working for him.

To the outsider, this reorganization again seems odd.

It was the month, rather than the night, of long knives in investment banking this November.

It’s never quiet in UK banking these days. In a fitting episode of handbags at dawn, Ana Botín, the chief executive of Santander UK, reneged on an agreement to buy 316 branches from RBS. The provisional sale agreement had been signed in the summer of 2010 when António Horta-Osório was running Santander UK. Santander wanted to expand its penetration of the small-business market and was prepared to pay £1.65 billion to do so.

Pandit and Havens used to work at Morgan Stanley. In fact, at one time, Pandit was president of the firm. As James Gorman struggles with John Mack’s legacy, a wild thought crosses my mind. Might Pandit one day return to run his alma mater? Over at Morgan Stanley, Gorman is facing the third anniversary of his ascension to the chief executive throne. And the going has not been easy.

Padraic Fallon, the chairman and editor-in-chief of Euromoney Institutional Investor, was the person who highlighted to me the importance of being first. "Write something new, Abigail," he would say. "Always try to be first with your angle or story. Go out and meet new people."

Sometimes, I am pleased to say, I get there before others. Those who are successful normally spot signals before they become trends and navigate accordingly. I can think of many examples: Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, who realized people would pay £2.50 for a half decent cup of coffee; Steve Jobs, who saw that consumers wanted design as well as functionality; and even Barack Obama, who recognized in 2008 that the US public were desperate for change. Of course, Obama now faces a difficult re-election battle as it is not clear his tenure delivered the change that he promised.

In late September I attended a fascinating dinner organized by a top money manager who is based in the US. There was a leading American political strategist present who is very well connected in Washington. So I was able to glean some insights into the current state of US politics.

As Fisher gets hot under the collar, many investment bankers are starting to shiver in their boots. A theme of this column for several years now has been that most big investment banks are vastly overstaffed and in denial about the need to cut jobs and costs. When UBS announced their newest ‘new strategy’ in November 2011 – a supposed response to the unauthorized Kwaku Adoboli trading loss – I criticized the bank on the grounds that the action was not drastic enough. I remember a conversation where I reiterated that view to a senior UBS banker. Although courteous, the senior banker obviously thought I was exaggerating and that the industry would continue to chug along with slightly diminished staffing and compensation levels. But now it seems the great train ride might indeed be over. An email crossed my desk recently and the author, a head-hunter, bemoaned the "lean pickings" in the fixed-income, commodity and currency world. "It all looks bleak," hunter wailed. He went on to speak about bonus pools being savaged by 30% to 80% this year and job cuts cascading into October. Hunter ended on an unhappy note: "For now, we are seeing very limited new hiring plans." I hear that banks as diverse as Barclays, Deutsche, Credit Suisse, UBS, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Nomura and BNP might all reduce headcount before the year-end. In other words, we will see industry-wide cutbacks. Economic forecaster CEBR predicts that in 2013 there will be only 250,000 investment bankers in the City of London, 100,000 fewer than five years ago and the lowest number since 1996. I don’t mean to be brutal but my reaction would be: "That’s more like it!"

One of the participants at the dinner had also been present at the Federal Reserve’s annual symposium in August at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Mole reported that Bernanke was now wildly unpopular with his central bank colleagues, especially those from the emerging markets. These central bankers perceive the Fed’s infatuation with indefinite QE as a recipe for disaster. A weaker dollar means stronger emerging market currencies, which in turn makes exports more expensive. A weaker dollar also increases the price of key commodities such as oil and grains, and this makes for a febrile political environment as the poor suffer more.

This was the summer when many of the chickens that the Abigail with attitude column has been husbanding came home to roost.

The firm might be stuck in the middle with nowhere to go: it is neither a global, bulge-bracket player nor a focused, low-cost, niche operator.

As a Brit and career retail banker with a long and successful history at Barclays, Antony Jenkins may be seen in some quarters as the perfect successor to Bob Diamond as chief executive. For one market commentator in particular however, Jenkins is an unknown quantity whose suitability is questionable.

Increasingly, I am noticing that while bank chief executives have to be seen in public, heads of investment banks are trying to keep a very low profile.

The received wisdom is that if Morgan Stanley gets into too much trouble, Mitsubishi will step in to save it. Will that still be the case now that Nomura’s grandiose international project has ended with a whimper?

The British public could justifiably claim to have been let down by their bankers. In late June, a computer problem meant that RBS and its subsidiaries were unable to process numerous client banking transactions for several days. Then in early July, it transpired that Barclays bankers were running amok manipulating a key customer benchmark rate. And now in late July, we learn that HSBC has been cosying up to some of the world’s most undesirable individuals and that the bank’s client records might be synonymous with the FBI’s most wanted list.

Bankers were in subdued mood when they gathered in early July for Euromoney’s 2012 Awards for excellence dinner. Bob Diamond’s abrupt resignation a few days’ earlier was on everyone’s mind. And anxiety about the Libor rigging investigations cast a pall on proceedings. "It feels as if the industry itself is on trial," one guest murmured. Another 50-something senior banker was more vehement: "I don’t think this blood-letting will stop until my whole generation has been forced to step down."

Bob Diamond resigned from Barclays on July 3 and as I write this, some three weeks later, bankers are starting to talk in hushed tones about the "Libor rigging scandal" being the financial industry’s "tobacco moment".

HSBC’s advertising slogan for many years was the "world’s local bank", now media headline writers are dubbing the bank: "The world’s local money launderer". Always considered conservative, well run and frankly a bit stodgy, HSBC has stumbled badly. And we are all like stunned moles blinking in the sunlight, following a 340-page report from a US Senate subcommittee accused HSBC of laundering cash for terrorists, drug barons and dictators through many of its subsidiaries.

As Facebook fights back – at least in terms of stalling its sagging share price – controversy continues to rage as to who is to blame for the inept IPO. On June 15, a month after the IPO date, Facebook shares languished 20% below their offering price of $38. Many are fingering the stock exchange, Nasdaq, as culprit in chief. For all that Nasdaq chief Bob Greifeld has come out since with his own mea culpa, saying he and his colleagues "owe the industry an apology", I am not so sure.

Bob Diamond’s appearance before the Treasury Select Committee was culture clash TV. But the MPs failed to score on the most important issue: the swash-buckling, high octane, risk-taking culture that Diamond created at Barclays Capital led to, indirectly, the Libor scandal and more

The Facebook IPO no doubt cast a pall on the summer sunshine for senior Morgan Stanley executives. However, another bank that has had a torrid time recently is Credit Suisse. This is a little unexpected. The bank was a distinct winner from the 2008 crisis: it did not take government money and seemed to adapt quickly to the changing environment. However the share price performance in the past two years has been disastrous – it is down more than 60% since early August 2010 and now trades below its 2009 trough, close to a two-decade low. Other leading global banks have suffered, but not as much. Over the same period, JPMorgan’s share price is down by some 10% and HSBC shares are about 15% lower.

Life is full of surprises: big and little, nice and not so nice. I am trying to sell my apartment in London. One rainy Thursday morning, I flung open the front door to see my estate agent, Simon; an elderly diminutive man so shabbily dressed that I thought he might be a tramp; and a younger, larger man. "Can I please show my client around?" Simon asked politely. "Of course," I replied. "But as it’s pouring with rain, please take your shoes off." There was a stunned silence and then they took their shoes off and the tramp strode into my kitchen and proceeded to inspect the rest of my flat. After the tour was complete, the group gathered in the vestibule and I overheard the agent saying oleaginously to the supposed tramp: "Aha, so you think it’s too small for you." And the group trooped off into the rain.

In my last column, I predicted that the over-hyped Facebook initial public offering was an ominous sign for the health of equity markets. Nevertheless, Facebook and flop were not words I expected to see in the same sentence. I was wrong. I’ve watched some deals backfire during my time as a Euromoney columnist: the listings of Bumi and Blackstone come to mind as well as Prudential’s grandiose plan in 2010 to purchase AIA, the former Asian arm of AIG. But the Facebook IPO is one of the biggest collapsed soufflés of them all.

Someone whom I’m sure is of similar mind is Stuart Gulliver, chief executive of HSBC. Since ascending to the Tai Pan role, Gulliver has kept a studiously low profile while sticking to plan A. In May 2011, Gulliver announced the results of a strategic review that could have been entitled: "Focus is the price to pay for excellence."

Some stories cause you to raise an eyebrow, others make you gasp out loud. In the past year, there have been a few gasp-out-loud stories.

As if Dimon’s fall from grace wasn’t bad enough, markets are also battling with Grexit demons. ‘Grexit’ is a new word that has entered the financial lexicon along with ‘financial repression’ and ‘the great recession’.

Last month I mused about the 2012 compensation for Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond and whether the large package was justified. I received some interesting feedback on this topic. One source pointed out that a large part of the £20 million number I had referred to was vesting shares, accumulated during previous years when Diamond was head of the investment bank. Source went on to state that if Diamond and his advisers were more in touch with sentiment in the country, they might have realized that even though every item of the compensation package could be justified, it was simply not appropriate to snaffle all the moolah at once. "Why not put some of it in a charitable foundation?" source queried. "Or put it in trust until the share price rises by 30% so investors feel good about Diamond getting paid?"

The Abigail with attitude column hosted one of its quarterly round-table dinners this month. Several of the UK’s most senior bankers mingled with a media mogul and some veteran continental financiers. A few points linger in my mind. First, there was a general anxiety about the potential for significant social disruption in Europe as austerity programmes bite and youth unemployment spirals ever higher. Secondly, some senior bankers are still in denial about the reasons why they are deeply disliked. "It’s all the fault of the press," one banker moaned. "They are stirring up the people and the politicians against us." Media mogul responded firmly. "No," he said. "The people are angry because billions of taxpayers’ money was spent to bail out the banks. Ordinary people’s standard of living has gone down: taxes are up, inflation is up, wages are stagnant yet bank bosses continue to earn millions. Bankers need to justify their role and worth to society." I know whose side I am on in this debate. What do you think?

It is good to see the Bull charging back. In late April, Bank of America Merrill Lynch announced that it had hired Alex Wilmot-Sitwell from UBS as its new president of Europe and the emerging markets ex Asia. For those of you who have short memories, UBS hired one of Merrill’s top bankers, Andrea Orcel, merely a month ago to be co-head of the investment bank. Since then, Orcel has persuaded several other senior Merrill bankers to join him at UBS: Javier Oficialdegui, Javier Martinez-Piqueras and Emilio Greco.

Ian Hannam is someone whose personal brand has benefited, not suffered, from his recent actions. Until recently chairman of global capital markets at JPMorgan Cazenove, he resigned in April after the UK Financial Services’ Authority published its decision that he had been guilty of market abuse.

Last month, I had lunch with a former City trader who is a trustee of a big investment bank’s pension fund. Trader was gloomy. "Returns are abysmal," he wailed. "Pension funds can’t function when the risk-free rate on 10-year UK gilts is 2.2%, equity markets have gone nowhere for a decade and inflation is running at 3.5%." Trader confessed that in his bleakest moments he could see a situation where funds were not able to honour their obligations to those who enjoy favourable defined-benefit schemes."And governments will have to find billions in the next decades to make good the holes in the western civil service pension schemes," he said glumly as he speared a lettuce leaf.

Of course, there is another big IPO coming to a screen near you shortly. I am talking about the phenomenal Facebook deal, which is veiled under a hefty shroud of secrecy but which seems to be scheduled for the launch pad in mid-May. I wonder if that will mark the peak of the equity market this year? Morgan Stanley is the lead underwriter for this fiercely contended deal.

Some are calling him ‘bloated Bob’. Others prefer the prefix ‘bountiful’. I would suggest the adjectives ‘baffling’ and ‘burnished’.

For a while now, I have commented that the Goldman brand is broken. Don’t forget that a lot of senior people are leaving the firm. Think: Ed Eisler, David Heller, Chris Barter and Raj Sethi. This exodus reflects the fact that investment banking is no longer much fun or extremely well paid.

This column usually focuses on the big people in the industry. But in March it was a little person who roiled the markets. Greg Smith, a mid-level Goldman Sachs employee, and his vehement exit letter, masquerading as a New York Times opinion-editorial took everyone by surprise. The piece went viral and another new word was spawned in the Goldman Sachs lexicon. ‘Muppet’ joined ‘vampire squid’.

Goldman Sachs has a problem but so does Bank of America. In late March, the chairman of banking and markets, Andrea Orcel, departed abruptly to take up a post as co-head of UBS’s investment bank. Commentators were surprised. Orcel had been at Merrill Lynch for two decades. Hailed as one of the top rainmakers of his generation, he had recently concluded the important UniCredit rights issue, on which Merrill acted as the global coordinator.

Deals are more than numbers and synergies – they’re about the people involved. If the Glencore and Xstrata deal goes through, it will have a big effect on the M&A league tables but it might also stumble over a regulatory fence on the way. Abigail Hofman dissects the possible creation of a $90 billion conglomerate

I must admit that the cacophony surrounding Stephen Hester’s bonus has taken me aback. In late January, Royal Bank of Scotland decided to award its chief executive a near-£1 million bonus for 2011 in addition to his £1.2 million salary which, under enormous media and political pressure, Hester was forced to decline.

By industry standards, Hester deserved a bonus from RBS; by political imperative, he should never have agreed to accept it. But could this dreadful saga be a mere warm-up for bank bonus season in the UK and beyond?

In the run-up to Christmas, I met up with three bank chief executives. This opening sounds a bit like a line from the carol The 12 days of Christmas. In that case, it would be followed by a chorus of "and a partridge in a pear tree". I found the chiefs weary after an unexpectedly tough year. One was recovering from flu, another had suffered a nasty bout of pneumonia and the third looked shattered.

Abigail Hofman has consistently called for Nomura to rethink its global strategy. What was behind the sudden departure of Jesse Bhattal, and what needs to happen next?

With deals still hard to come by, what can investment bankers do when they have nothing to do? And what was behind Michel Peretié’s sudden departure from SocGen?

Who’d be a bank chief executive? Most fear that 2012 will make a tough 2011 seem like a cake-walk; and it could be the year of the chop at the top of the industry

Somehow, we seem to be back in the TMT era. Do you even remember what those initials stood for? Think telecoms, media, technology, and dial back 12 years to the dot-com mania and the 3G auctions for mobile phone licences. In mid-October, the BlackBerry email network went down for several days, causing consternation to most financiers. For several years now, the BlackBerry has been seen as uncool. "A device for boring old men," one teenager sniffed. But I should point out that the London rioters planned their nocturnal activities using BlackBerry’s free messaging service.

Blackberry meltdown adds to woes of desperate bankers; Sherwood stands out among disappointing diners at new Savoy Grill; Watch out for the next generation Weinberg at Goldman Sachs

Blankfein might turn out to be one of the great survivors. Nevertheless, I am becoming convinced that the investment banking industry can be compared to the good ship Titanic, silently advancing through the dark night, towards the immutable iceberg.

Somehow, we seem to be back in the TMT era. Do you even remember what those initials stood for? Think telecoms, media, technology, and dial back 12 years to the dot.com mania and the 3G auctions for mobile phone licences.

Woody’s glum demeanour might also have been due to succession planning or the lack of it at the firm. For more than a year, commentators have been insisting that Goldman’s chief executive Lloyd Blankfein would have to step down.

I recently had lunch with a charming mole, who took me to the Savoy Grill. This was once a legendary meeting place for the power crowd. It has now been refurbished and is run by Gordon Ramsay.

So that’s your technology nugget, but the media story of the moment is causing nearly as much discussion. An empty interview occurred in the German Handelsblatt newspaper.

My concern about succession planning at UBS was well founded. As politicians, central bankers and financiers gathered in Washington for the IMF/World Bank meetings, the UBS board met in Singapore. And contrary to what most people including myself had expected, UBS’s chief executive Oswald Grübel resigned, saying that he had to bear ultimate responsibility for the recent rogue-trading scandal inflicted on the bank by Kweku Adoboli.

Grübel should have stayed to steady the ship; Ermotti becomes fourth CEO in four years, but what are his credentials for the role?; and a lame duck chairman cannot be the right person to force through the changes that UBS urgently needs to make

The Abigail with attitude column calls for the dismissal of anyone involved with the regulation of UBS’s investment bank.

"Stay close to the shore." It’s a sophisticated phrase that I’ve always considered full of pregnant implications but never properly understood. Recently a friend explained: "It’s short for stick to things you know or where you have an edge."

As London locks up its rioters, isn’t it time that investors stopped bankers acting as wardens of their own institutions? Meanwhile, the results season means the jury remains out for the likes of Blankfein, Gorman and Dougan

The results season means the jury remains out for the likes of Blankfein, Gorman and Dougan

Market histrionics and rioting hooligans are an indigestible combination. The August riots in London were an unwelcome back-drop to the bungee-jumping stock markets. I was intrigued by commentators’ attempts to link the two.

As Wendi Murdoch stands by her man, why won’t Deutsche Bank give the sole CEO role to its most important banker?; the rating agency that keeps calling it right predicts a European meltdown; and what Goldman’s headcount cull could mean for the rest of the Street

Abigail Hofman muses on the banks that are succeeding, Euromoney’s success in raising £600,000 for a worthy cause, and why bank chiefs are so bad at managing their succession

Top traders are gloomy about the prospects for stock markets over the next 18 months, but not nearly as fed up as mid-level bankers looking with anger, rather than envy, at the compensation of their top bosses says Abigail Hofman

Who’s right: the doom-mongers or the Cassandras?

A busy few weeks leave our columnist pondering: Can Kengeter get it right at UBS? Who’s right: the doom-mongers or the Cassandras? And how can you afford to miss the Chelsea Flower Show

The most annoying words in the English language must be: I told you so. Nevertheless, I was correct when I wrote negatively about the Glencore IPO in June. ‘Can this be the right time to buy Glencore shares?’ I enquired. ‘When these guys are selling, do you want to be buying?’ It gives me no pleasure to report that on June 16, Glencore share were trading at £4.68, some 12% below the price at which the company listed its shares one month earlier. The shares now look over-sold and have traded up a little to around £4.90, but if you had been lured in to investing in the issue by a slick-tongued salesman, you might feel a little queasy today. I felt a little queasy in late May, not because of any ill-advised share purchases but because I had over-committed myself. Since I left investment banking, I take a more relaxed attitude to life and aim to dawdle in the slow lane, smelling the roses. Gone are the days of the 7am flight to Frankfurt, six meetings, two conference calls and a business dinner.

The day after my dinner, I took the Eurostar to Paris where I attended the 43rd annual conference of ICMA, the international debt markets’ trade association that describes its core objective as: ‘Improving the efficiency of cross-border securities markets.’ This year my former boss, Hans-Joerg Rudloff chairman of Barclays Capital, is retiring after six years as chairman of ICMA. Rudloff is one of the legends of the Eurobond market. Not surprisingly, he has featured on several covers of Euromoney magazine over the decades. It is 13 years since I first met Rudloff and he has not withered at all. At the tender age of 70, he still has the energy and tenacity of a much younger man. Everyone has his or her own Rudloff story. I have many but will pick one that illustrates that experience is an attribute much underestimated. In late 2007, I called on Rudloff to get some views for my column. As he escorted me out through the lobby, he paused, pulled off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and peered at me in an owl like fashion: “Abigail,” he growled, “Everything’s too frothy. People say it will be fine and there will be a soft landing. But I can tell you I’ve never seen a soft landing in my life.” Of course Rudloff was right. No one could possibly describe the events of 2008 as a soft-landing. Back in Paris, Rudloff hosted a glamorous party at the Musée Rodin. The hospitality was generous and there must have been over 500 ICMA delegates present. I saw many senior market figures including Martin Egan of BNP Paribas, Allegra Berman of UBS, Spencer Lake of HSBC and, of course, Cyrus Ardalan, vice-chairman of Barclays Capital, who takes over from Rudloff as the new chairman of ICMA. Cyrus has big shoes to fill. I hope Rudloff continues to be involved at the centre of international capital markets for many years to come.

Glencore IPO

The saga of Strauss-Kahn at the Sofitel hotel serves as the ultimate antidote to smugness. One must always remember that what the gods give the gods can remove.

How's your 2011?

Suddenly, the clouds converged and the warm spring sunlight dimmed. This was how I felt when I read that 47-year-old Pietro Ferrero, chief executive of the Ferrero group, and heir to one of Italy’s biggest fortunes, had died of a suspected heart attack. Ferrero died while bicycling on a coastal road near Cape Town during a break from a business meeting in South Africa. US treasuries

“A UBS insider points out that the landscape in the securities division is flatter: ‘A layer has been removed.’ But I still think Carsten Kengeter has too many lieutenants”

The wilderness years may be the title of a TV mini-series but it could as easily be a state of mind. I have been thinking about those who are in exile. Obviously potentates such as Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the former president of Tunisia, come to mind, but might the phrase also apply to senior bankers who are temporarily resting?

This month there will be a changing of the guard at UK bank plc. I will be watching with interest as the new boys put on their bullet-proof vests and tin hats and go into battle.

Some readers derided my story in last November’s column where I asked: “Is it bonfire night or bonfire of the vanities at Credit Suisse?” I criticized the bank for its recent compensation payouts against a backdrop of poor share performance and disappointing third-quarter results.

I am a rebel. Non-conformity is my middle name. So perhaps it is not surprising that four separate sources sent me the UBS corporate wear dress guide for women and men. This 50-page document is targeted at employees in the Swiss retail branches such as reception staff, “event attendants, security staff and all personnel working in Limousine Service”. Note to Ossie Grübel: why haven’t you sacked all your limousine staff? We are living in an age of the new frugal, and last time I looked UBS wasn’t paying a dividend to its shareholders. Anyway, these guidelines proved to be the comedy highlight of a dreary December. And I must reprimand a humourless reader who sent me the document with the haughty message: “I cannot understand why UBS is still wasting money on such rubbish.”

December is a month for reflection: reflection on what has passed and what might happen.

Is it bonfire night or bonfire of the vanities at Credit Suisse? The Swiss bank has reported mediocre third quarter results for 2010. Group net income plunged by 74% (year over year) to SFr609 million, pre-tax profits at the investment bank were down 50% from the second quarter and group return on equity was 7%.

HSBC's succession saga; Deutsche's Q3 results; Wuffli's ethics and globalization; M&A Mee

I am involved in a spat with the sisterhood.

The demise of the Prudential deal together with inhospitable debt and equity markets implies that the second-quarter numbers for global investment banks will be bad.

Vikram Pandit has taken Citi from a place where the institution was written off as a basket case to being a share beloved by star hedge fund managers and widely seen as a buy for widows’ and orphans’ pension pots.

“Nomura was in a strategic corner: they were trapped in Japan. They bought the Lehman operations for virtually nothing. If I criticize the Japanese for anything – it is that they are not involved enough in the investment banking business."

Credit Suisse’s Performance Incentive Plan (PIP) paid out and some lucky bankers became very rich indeed. I’m not talking 'buy a magnum of champagne' rich.

It certainly appears as if Planet Finance is thriving once again – notwithstanding public hostility, bonus taxes and politicians baying for blood.

For the moment, Goldman will no longer be the safe choice or even the first choice for clients.

As mentioned in a previous column, I am often asked who the market’s rising stars are. So I have decided to feature, from time to time, certain financiers whose careers have momentum and about whom you will hear a lot more in the next few years.

There is a murmuring in the London market that Merrill is a mess. Or rather that Bank of America Merrill Lynch is a mess. That sentiment was exacerbated in March when two senior European FIG bankers, Amir Hoveyda and Sid Prasad, resigned. Hoveyda lost out to Alastair Borthwick and Lisa Carnoy to run global capital markets after the previous head, Bruce Thompson, was promoted to be chief risk officer. Some say that Borthwick wants to focus the firm’s energies more on corporate and frequent borrower business. Paul Richards, who once ran the global debt syndicate function, will succeed Hoveyda as head of debt capital markets, EMEA, while retaining his current role as head of international debt syndicate. Marc Tempelman steps up to be head of FIG DCM in Europe. This is also a sign that we are in a different era: in the heady days of 2006 and 2007, Merrill was renowned for its financial institution franchise. Bankers such as Greg Fleming, Andrea Orcel, Matthew Greenburgh and Amir Hoveyda were revered as the new masters of the universe. Remember it was Merrill that advised the RBS consortium on its bid in 2007 for ABN Amro. Now it looks as if the carnival has moved on.

Sid Prasad worked at Nomura before he joined Merrill Lynch. I have been keeping my eye on Nomura since I met with Sadeq Sayeed, the chief executive of the EMEA operation, last August. Before that meeting, I wrote in my June 2009 column: "It is conceivable that the Lehman acquisition might turn out to be an expensive mistake for the Japanese... I always worry when loyalty is purchased with hefty guarantees." Indeed now, as the last tranche of the guarantees given in 2008 is paid, Nomura is suffering significant defections by former Lehman staff such as Siggi Thorkelsson, head of equities in Asia; Thomas Siegmund, co-head of fixed income in the region; and Jane Wang, vice-chairman of China investment banking. Indeed, every day another senior resignation seems to hit the screen. In mid-March, it was announced that Sayeed himself would be "retiring" from Nomura. No immediate successor was named, which led me to believe that there was an odour of huff about the parting. The following day we learnt that Nomura was forming a new global wholesale division that would be run by Jesse Bhattal, the former head of Lehman in Asia. Bhattal will be based in Hong Kong and will join Nomura’s executive management board. A commentator opined: "Sayeed lost out to Bhattal. Bhattal’s appointment is a sop to the Lehman people who are all threatening to leave now that they have been paid." I look forward to catching up with Bhattal whom I have not seen for many years. However, I believe he has a huge challenge ahead of him: he needs to forge a focused strategy, develop an expertise where Nomura truly excels and decide what to do about the lack of a US platform.

It could be argued that the Goldman allure is waning and that all those years of invincible isolation have unleashed a backlash of Goldie bashing. However, I discern a more ominous development.

It’s weird how at the moment all roads lead back to Lehman Brothers. In mid-March, Anton Valukas, appointed by a US court to examine Lehman’s failure, finally delivered his 2,200-page report. It revealed a crucial new piece of information: Lehman had used repo transactions (so-called Repo 105 transactions) involving some $50 billion of assets to shrink its balance sheet, and consequently its leverage ratios, at crucial quarter-end dates in 2008. This gives rise to accusations of balance-sheet manipulation, inadequate disclosure and signing off on misleading accounts. One commentator wailed: "All this should have been reported to and approved by the audit committee." It is not clear that this happened but in any event I would point out to Wailing Commentator that the Lehman board appeared to be friends of Fuld rather than supporters of shareholders. I was the first journalist to spot this peculiarity. I examined the Lehman board in May 2006 and hinted strongly that it was not fit for purpose. Half the board were septuagenarians and few had relevant experience. The group included a former theatrical producer and a retired female navy rear-admiral: both of whom sat on the firm’s finance and risk committee. Now everyone talks about the failure of the Lehman board. Isn’t it a little late for such pontificating? In future, please read the Abigail with attitude column diligently and take note of my musings.

There is often a transaction that defines a period. It’s the financial equivalent of remembering where you were when Princess Diana died or John F Kennedy was shot.

So there is Monty perched astride the bull that once was Merrill Lynch. But what of his former boss, the robotic John Thain? Thain, whose most notorious legacy to Merrill was a $1.2 million refurbishment of former chief executive Stan O’Neal’s office, resurfaced in early February. He was appointed as chief executive of CIT, the lender to small and medium-sized US business, which is emerging from bankruptcy. There is no doubt that a few years ago Thain would not have taken the headhunter’s call if the initials CEO had been mentioned in the same sentence as the letters CIT. After all, Thain was a true master of the universe: a former co-president of Goldman Sachs and a respected chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange. It is a sobering lesson to us all but one misjudgement can bring the juggernaut of a successful career to a shuddering halt. To spend over $1 million of company funds on redecorating your office (and adjacent conference room) in a year when investment banks were bleeding to death shows a sense of entitlement that is indefensible. While Thain was signing the chits for his new furniture, he was grovelling to sovereign wealth funds to replenish the firm’s capital and chopping the bills for fresh flowers at Merrill’s headquarters. Obviously, Thain was aware that there was a need to economize. At least employees had the chance to enjoy the flowers. Few of them probably had the occasion to perch their pert buttocks on the $35,000 commode in Thain’s private quarters. Thain is fortunate to be given a second chance. Ironically, the previous CIT chief executive, Jeff Peek, was a former Merrill man too. Peek left the investment bank in 2001 when he was passed over for the job of president and COO which went to O’Neal.

Cuomo's allegations surrounding Bank of America's former and current heads are perplexing.

IFR awards; HSBC cocktails; the US banks' Q4 reporting, or, a party without the punchbowl.

Last year was an odd one: waves of euphoria and despair that normally unfold over decades were compressed into 12 months. In the early part of 2009, you could smell the fear: even the wealthy were paralyzed by panic. Of course, with hindsight, one can see all the elements were in place for a massive boom in financial assets.

Barclays issued its third-quarter trading update on November 10, the same day as HSBC announced its results. Ten days later, its shares have slipped about 11%. In fact, Barclays’ share price is down 20% since the Qatar sovereign investment fund sold part of its stake in the UK bank on October 20. Another interesting footnote to the credit crunch has been how supposedly strategic sovereign wealth funds have transformed themselves into opportunistic short-term traders, avaricious for a quick profit. Some say that Barclays’ interim trading statement was disappointing. Group profit before tax for the nine months ended September 30 fell by 19% to £4.5 billion, profit before tax in the investment banking and investment management division was £1.9 billion (down 38% from 2008), impairments rose in the UK retail banking division and the cost/income ratio spiralled higher in the investment bank. It should be noted, however, that last year Barclays had a substantial one-off gain on the Lehman acquisition, and that it continues to increase revenues faster than expenses with a positive cost: income jaws of 7%. The bank also said that it expected impairments for the full year to be around the bottom of its anticipated range for 2009 at £9 billion.

"Glamour and football-style pay packages have rarely been a feature of the HSBC landscape. Today, we realize that this is how a well-managed bank conducts itself."

"Life is fragile," Jamie Forese, Citi’s head of markets, mused. We were sitting in his office at Citi’s New York investment banking headquarters. It was the eighth anniversary of the September 11 World Trade Center bombings. I thought of Jamie’s words when the 61-year-old legendary banker Bruce Wasserstein, chairman and chief executive of Lazard Ltd, died unexpectedly in mid-October. Wasserstein, like Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, was a Credit Suisse First Boston refugee who went on to found his own firm, become a billionaire and leave an indelible mark on the financial firmament.

Merckle may have committed suicide because his empire was floundering but if I were a senior manager of a bank that is still in receipt of funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp), I might feel a little suicidal myself. In late September, I read a document enticingly entitled: ‘Practical considerations for implementing a luxury expenditures policy’, produced by Navigant Consulting. I don’t think I have laughed so much since details of the refurbishment of former Merrill CEO John Thain’s office surfaced.

Bankers like to think of themselves as entrepreneurs and when the leveraged finance market died many specialists were reborn as restructuring professionals.

I congratulate Morgan Stanley’s board for having made a decision rather than tiptoeing around the succession story until it became the elephant in the room. But there will be challenges ahead.

In December 2008, I wrote a piece about Barclays, criticizing the expensive £7 billion capital-raising from Middle East investors and the decision to purchase Lehman’s US broker-dealer last September when the outlook for investment banking was at its most opaque. The article elicited howls of outrage from Barclays’ supporters. One indignant reader snorted: “I am encouraged by your criticism of Barclays’ management.”

"How the hell do you think I’m doing after losing $1 billion?"

The past two turbulent years have also redefined the adjectives that are acceptable to describe a chief executive in the financial services industry

The disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street widens.

Morgan Stanley’s fixed-income traders have not excelled and in 2009 the firm has failed to capitalize on opportunities in the flow businesses

Some are wondering who might be in line to succeed present chief executive Mike Geoghegan should he move on in a few years

A number of senior financiers made an enormous effort to join the party

Have we learnt anything from the unsettling events of the past nine months? I have learnt that bankers have short memories and exceptionally short recall regarding painful reminiscences. Maybe it’s part of the human condition. It certainly seems to be part of a banker’s DNA.

This edition of Abigail with attitude includes a guide to decoding the underemployed senior banker’s vocabulary.

In today’s hostile environment, no amount of money could induce me to work as a CFO at a US financial institution.

A more frugal future looms, one where simple is the new sane.

Eighteen months ago, the chief executives of major financial firms were revered. We envied their elevated status – the jets, the bodyguards, the limousines and the layers of gatekeepers. Now these men are reduced to squirming schoolchildren who’ve been caught stealing from the communal cookie jar.

As the terrible fourth-quarter results were unveiled, Bank of America started briefing against John Thain, Merrill Lynch’s chief executive. This is always a high-risk press strategy. A public relations specialist comments: "Washing dirty laundry in public is dangerous. Now even grannies in Topeka, Kansas, know that Bank of America is in chaos."

Those of us involved in finance tend to treat the vagaries of investment banking as a matter of life and death.

Beleaguered Barclays, Delphic Deutsche, bank bonuses and preempting press releases.

A few incidents from that weekend remain in my mind.

The list of badly flawed financial institutions is long: Barclays (crumbling shareholder value), Société Générale (poor controls), UBS (total mismanagement), Lehman Brothers (vainglorious leadership), Bear Stearns (dereliction of management).

A week, they say, is a long time in politics. We now know that a week can be an eternity in the financial markets, especially when it starts with Lehman Brothers going bust and ends with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley becoming licensed deposit takers so that they can snuggle closer to the Federal Reserve. Oh, and in between, you had the rescue of the largest US insurance company, AIG and the proposed Stalinization of US capitalism financed by the Land of the Free’s taxpayers.

"Why did I tell you that? Please, please forget that I mentioned it," a chief wailed.

I hate to be the ugly fairy at the wedding but I'm starting to wonder if John Thain will turn out ot be Merrill's messiah after all.

It’s a truism that hindsight is 20/20 vision. But those who spot the signals of turning markets are visionaries and those who act on these signals are true geniuses.

“If you’re going to call on shareholders, you’d better be first at the feast not last into battle.”

The world is starting to resemble a spinning top: one week the markets soar, the next they sink. Even mighty masters of the universe are confused: hedge funds and banks had a dire month in March.

We are engulfed in a tornado of gloom. Wall Street titans and employees alike have seen their share options decimated, pension pots plummet and everyone feels insecure about job security. I’m hearing that investment banks need to cut 20% of their employees to accommodate lower profitability.

Credit Suisse’s convoluted saga is a calamity for the banking sector as a whole. People might assume that banks don’t understand the numbers they are dealing with and that the numbers that are reported are not reliable.

The credit crunch has been a tornado that has shown no regard for the reputations of formerly revered individuals.

Ruling Citi would be like ruling the Forbidden City. There is so much breadth to the institution that it would be hard for any one individual to span the various sectors: investment banking, consumer banking, wealth management and retail brokerage. And as for structure, I’ve had mud baths that are more transparent.

Despite all the jawboning over the past few years about succession planning, banks seem woefully unprepared if they are forced to jettison a flailing chief executive because of cauldron-like shareholder pressure.

"You’re fired" is the new "You’re free".

I do expect some tales of woe. I am nervous about UBS and Deutsche and concerned about Merrill.

A broken watch shows the correct time twice a day. I have been a high priestess of gloom for at least a year and finally I can straighten my spine and look you in the eye. There were others who felt uneasy. Many senior bankers told me that the risks being taken were unsustainable. However, it was the investment banker, Paul, who put it most pungently.

There should be a health warning: hedge funds can cause death. Peter Wuffli, UBS’s former chief executive was assassinated last week. A hedge fund may have contributed to his untimely departure.

Has the eagle landed? Last Tuesday, Vino Timmerman, advocate-general to the Dutch Supreme Court, argued that ABN Amro should be allowed to sell its US subsidiary LaSalle to Bank of America without shareholder approval. Although the advocate-general’s opinion is not binding on the Supreme Court, it is generally followed. The court will provide its own verdict in mid-July.

Last week was an interesting week to be in New York. It was the week of the double Bs and I’m not referring to cup size. Or to put it another way, the week of B-S squared: Blackstone and Bear Stearns.

I am crest-fallen. My reputation as someone who reads the runes correctly has been ruined. In an earlier column, I fulminated against the meaningless title vice-chairman.

While writing this column I have met many interesting people. I have also met many delightful people. However, I have not met anyone more delightful and interesting than Jean-Pierre Mustier, the chief executive officer of Société Générale’s corporate and investment bank.

“It’s like hearing that a distant maiden aunt has died and left you nothing in her will,” a source said acerbically. Source was referring to the departure last week of Danny Palmer, former global head of capital markets at HSBC.

This is my 50th Abigail with attitude column.

When the journalist becomes the story, it is not ideal. On Friday, I was in Paris to meet the delightful Grégoire Varenne, head of fixed income, currencies and commodities at Société Générale. Around 1pm as I was reading some briefing material, my mobile rang.

Hot off the press

A fallen hero; a dog’s dinner; up the Swiss; and the fascination of Murdoch.

I feel vindicated.

“It’s not a question of if Armageddon arrives, but when,” a proprietary trader warned me last week.

Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, must have forgotten rule 1.01 of public life.

In today’s disembodied world of text messages and electronic mail, who writes thank you notes for breakfasts?

John Varley is dicing with death. History reveals several examples of British banking chiefs who have made bold moves only to fall flat on their noses and into the mud. SG Warburg courted Morgan Stanley and was gobbled up by Swiss Bank Corporation. NatWest bid for the insurance group Legal & General and became lunch for the Royal Bank of Scotland. The transformation from predator to prey can be precipitous.

When the bear meets the eagle, can any good come of it? Lehman Brothers has capitulated and is returning to the Russian market. Earlier this month, news leaked that the firm was hiring Nicholas Jordan, co-head of Russian global banking at Deutsche.

“That’s a good story,” I said. “Maybe I’ll use it in my column.” “If you use it, I will call your managing director and get you fired”

There are many perks to being the chairman or chief executive of a bank: private jets, chauffeur-driven limousines and general genuflection wherever your go. But a crisp white envelope from Christopher Hohn can not be counted among them.

Credit Suisse used to be a byword for bad governance. I remember a friend who worked there in the dot-com days joking: “It’s hard to find a jurisdiction where we are not being sued.’’

The lights were low at the Connaught bar. Outside it started to snow, white flakes gliding silently in to the darkened street. I sipped my Earl Grey tea and said: “I like trouble.” The stranger sitting opposite drained his large Jack Daniels. “My dear,” he drawled, “you don’t know what trouble is.”

I was flattered when a chief executive emailed: “Abigail, are you the Euromoney honey?” but in business school they teach that there is no second mover advantage. The real money honey is Maria Bartiromo, the Sophia Loren look-alike anchor of the Closing bell programme on CNBC.

“I loved your last column,” a colleague said. “You sounded so angry. Are you angry?” I pondered the question. Being psychoanalysed in public is embarrassing. Several Euromoney journalists leaned forward to hear my response.

“The media,” I mused, is out of control. “They find a topic and savage it to death.”

Some say Fischer is a contender to succeed Oswald Grubel as head of Credit Suisse. I have only one question: “Is Lenny hunky?”

Frothy art prices, frenzied bidding for London property and smiling faces make me nervous.

A slimmer Citigroup? Is BarCap and Credit Suisse a better fit? And Abigail’s Awards for for the best in banking in 2006.

I emailed a friend who is a successful banker: “London is damp and grey. I am denuded of gossip. Send sustenance swiftly.” His response was immediate:

The phones of top divorce lawyers such as Raymond Tooth and Fiona Shackleton are ringing off the hook.