Revenue from Montag's inherited empire, BofA's global banking and markets, is mixed but Mongag looks lucky.

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

Journalists and clients are breathing a sigh of relief that Bank of America Merrill Lynch has changed its email format to the much simpler baml.com from bofasecurities.com. Everyone agrees the full name of the firm is still too long, though. Whether or not the world will be forced to call the merged entity its two names for ever is uncertain, but Jeffry Pilcher, a financial naming consultant, says it could be worse. "It’s harder to say the two names than it is to write them, but that happens a lot with merged companies that want to retain the two brands. JPMorgan Chase is a pretty bad mash-up too."

While the old adage that you don’t change a winning team is not strictly true, it does suggest that Bank of America Merrill Lynch must have some serious fault lines in its FX business. As 2010 starts, the bank has had yet another change in its senior management (see People moves). Over the years, the once separate banks have employed some highly regarded players to try and crack into the upper echelons of FX.

As a new year starts, Bank of America Merrill Lynch has carried out its traditional change to the management of its foreign exchange business.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is believed to have hired Liam Hudson from Barclays NY, where he was a director of FX algorithmic execution. Rumour has it that he will be the bank’s new global head of FX e-trading.

Focus returns to core investment banking; Bajpai claims synergies from merger

The US bank’s succession planning is turning into a bad joke. But it still has time to get the punchline right by looking outside for its next leader.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is believed to have hired Liam Hudson from Barclays NY, where he was a director of FX algorithmic execution. Rumour has it that he will be global head of FX e-trading, although there is no official comment from the bank.

The last thing chairman Walter Massey and his board need as a successor to outgoing Ken Lewis is another pugnacious Bank of America lifer who rubs politicians the wrong way.

Krawcheck faces tough task at BofA Merrill Lynch; Merrill wealth staffers unwelcoming of outsiders

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

Although the bank is not commenting, it appears that Bank of America Merrill Lynch is making more changes to its FX business. The latest gossip is that it has hired Tom Gillie from Credit Suisse in Singapore, where he was head of FX options trading and structuring, Asia, for a senior role in options. The bank is also thought to have hired Chris Bae from Goldman Sachs in Asia, where he traded equity derivatives, for a role in FX.

BofA president bullish on prospects; Firm maintains top three revenue slot

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch has published an FX specific companion piece to its Merrill Lynch fund manager survey.

Global reach and capital remain king.

One thing Jim Quigley is not short of is confidence. The president of Latin America at Bank of America Merrill Lynch believes that the newly merged firm is well placed to win business as capital markets and investment banking activity begin to pick up.

Last month executives of the world’s largest banks, alarmed at collapsing share prices, told everyone what a profitable start to 2009 they had enjoyed. By the end of the month, shares were rallying. Let’s hope that actual first-quarter 2009 earnings announcements don’t pour cold water on their hopes. Peter Lee reports.

Shortly after the Wall Street Journal disclosed which Merrill executives had been awarded bumper payouts, Gu was served with a subpoena from New York’s attorney general to give a deposition on his remuneration. But as if that was not bad enough, there was talk in the financial markets that one of the traders in Gu’s division had incurred a $500 million loss, which was not immediately apparent.

Following its takeover of Merrill Lynch, some clarification has started to emerge from Bank of America about its management structure. Chris Allington and Chris Vogel are co-heads of G10 currency trading; Peter Antico is head of Americas rates and local-currency trading; Luke Halestrap is head of EMEA rates and local-currency trading; Chris Hodson is head of global rates electronic trading and market making; Mitch Nadel is head of Japan/Australia rates and currency trading; Nicolas Rabeau and Neh Thaker are co-heads of global rates and currencies exotics trading; Jin Su is head of Asia-Pacific rates and currency trading excluding Japan/Australia; and Frank Rawlins and Behnouche Mostachfi are co-heads of global FX options trading.

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."

Bank of America is due to close its acquisition of Merrill Lynch in March 2009 but it is still not clear what it plans to do with Merrill’s Latin American business.

The credit crisis has crossed the Pacific and hit home in Asia and is now even being felt in the streets of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of oil-rich Malaysia.

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.

Before the September crisis, many banks were looking to sell non-core assets to raise capital. Now, safety in size means mergers are the order of the day. But when the market settles, will investors demand that banks concentrate on what they are good at to maximise returns?

Even as they delever, shed assets, raise capital and hoard liquidity against further hits, banks know they must also fundamentally change the rotten underlying business practices that led them to disaster. If they can’t, even those that manage to survive this disaster will fall victim to the next. That’s if the regulators don’t shut them down first. Peter Lee reports on an industry trying to relearn the basics.

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.

The Merrill chief’s honeymoon is over. The question now is whether he’s guilty of misjudgment or mismanagement.

Merrill Lynch

Merrill Lynch has launched an investable index that the bank’s researchers say gives investors cleaner and more efficient access to US equity market volatility than products linked to the present benchmark, the Chicago Board Option Exchange’s Vix (Volatility Index). The Merrill Lynch US Forward Equity Variance Rolling (FEVR) index is designed to measure the performance of a long S&P 500 volatility strategy and follows the launch last year of a similar index in Europe, based on the volatility of the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50.