JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon.Photo: Getty Images
• There’s chink in Jamie Dimon’s armor: JPMorgan Chase reported that its second-quarter profits dropped 53 percent, to about $2 billion. Yet the profit surpassed analysts’ average estimate by about 10 cents per share. [DealBook/NYT]
• It’s a good day for BlackRock chairman Laurence Fink: His investment firm reported that profits climbed 23 percent, to $274 million, in the second quarter. [DealBook/NYT]
• On Monday, banking stocks took one of their steepest dives since the eighties. Yesterday, however, the stocks rallied, making their biggest one-day comeback in sixteen years as the Dow Jones climbed 2.5 percent. [NYT]
MEDIA
• Ratings might be dropping at the Peacock Network, but wunderkind Ben Silverman has increased NBC Universal’s profits by over 50 percent in his division. “We’re managing for margins and not for ratings,” he says. [NYP]
• Even though S.I. Newhouse isn’t planning on retiring anytime soon, the elephant in the room still begs: Who is the Condé Nast king’s heir apparent? [WWD]
• Apparently Howard Stern has a sensitive side. When the shock jock learned about the breakup of Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman, he said he “got so upset I had to go take a walk.” [NYP]
REAL ESTATE
• The withering economy hasn’t shrunk costs of the fanciest beach mansions, it seems. The median price for homes in Southampton Village is up 78.5 percent, to $3.1 million, while some pads have sold for as much as $60 million recently. Elsewhere out east, however, prices are dropping. In Speonk, New York, for example, prices have plunged 49 percent, to $316,000. [NYP]
• Do other prominent people get a break on their rent at Harlem’s Lenox Terrace, where Representative Charles Rangel lives? [NYT]
• Merrill Lynch isn’t moving to one of the new ground-zero towers, which means that with no private tenants in sight, developer Larry Silverstein might have a problem raising money for the site’s construction. [NYT]
• Queens is a hotter market than Brooklyn. [Curbed]
LAW
• Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman attorneys might be getting iPhones, but they’re also getting pink slips. [Above the Law]
• Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver can’t be held liable for a $500,000 settlement the state reached with a staffer who was involved in a sexual encounter with Silver’s former chief counsel. [Law.com]
• Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is being asked to prosecute hedge-fund manager Stuart Sugarman, who was implicated in the Equinox “You go girl!” spinning lawsuit. [Above the Law]
