Merrill Lynch announced its Q2 results after markets had closed yesterday, giving traders time to sleep on the fact that it made another $9.7bn of writedowns and a Q2 net loss of $4.65bn.

Henry Blodget pointed out that Merrill is now losing $52m a day (Clusterstock).

The thundering herd won’t be stampeding off to a new Manhattan skyscraper any time soon (Bloomberg).

Citigroup took Wall Street by surprise with a mere $2.5bn Q2 loss, and a near-microscopic $7.2bn of writedowns (CNN).

The wisdom of Dimon: “Prime looks terrible, and we’re sorry. We can say it eight times. It looks terrible.” (Credit Writedowns).

Freddie Mac’s cunning plan: a $10bn stock sale (Wall Street Journal).

First-year bonus rumours at Credit Suisse (Dealbreaker).

Qataris to the rescue after Barclays shareholders fail to perform (Financial Times).

Beginning of the end is beginning, says Ackerman (Financial Times).

Goldman sued by investors in ex-AWOL tent-dweller’s hedge fund (New York Times).

Is Dresdner about to be sold to… Commerzbank? (Evening Standard).

UK budget deficit highest since 1946, but it’s ok: rules are made to be broken redrawn as required
(Financial Times).

Fat people are hot (The Times).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with cheap wine (Freakonomics/New York Times).

Maniacal computer engineer holds San Francisco to ransom (The Times).

Forget the recession: go forth and multiply (The Telegraph).

Fun, fun and more fun

Grunting fish (BBC).