There are three things you need to lead an investment bank: an eye for a deal, a very thick skin and a good PR department. The latest round of interim results showed that chief executives did not necessarily need to have the first two, as long as they had the third...

In the second three months of the year, fixed-income revenues were down almost across the board, and while fees from equities trading varied, the picture here was also a bleak one. A healthier market for advisory activity was not enough to stop the second quarter of 2011 entering the record books as one to forget for the trading desks at international banks.