Lunchtime Links: Scary predictions around full-year results and their implications for employment prospects

The bears are now firmly out in force when it comes to anticipating 2010 profits in the investment banking industry.

The New York Times runs a very gloomy article pointing to how continued inactivity within both sales and trading and advisory work in the third quarter is likely to see profits decline sharply for 2010.

The case-in-point, predictably, is Goldman, with Citigroup analyst Keith Horowitz expecting a 35% decline in profits against 2009.

One of the inevitable consequences of this, according to this chart on Business Insider, is that the tentative job market recovery on Wall Street (and by proxy the City) could easily splutter to a halt.

Pretty bleak, but step forward JPMorgan analyst Kian Abohossein to provide a little positivity. A decline in third-quarter investment banking revenue will, to some extent, be offset by gains in equity derivatives, according to a research note cited by Bloomberg.

Not all banks will gain, he suggests, but BNP Paribas, SocGen and Goldman could offset losses in FICC and investment banking revenue through gains in derivative hedging - boosting equities revenue by an average of 64%.

Even FICC losses may not be as bad as expected. "We believe the market is factoring in an even more negative fixed income revenue environment than we are forecasting," he said.

BarCap may become a separate legal entity (Times)

FSA struggling to recruit (Financial News)

London and NY still top financial centres, but Asia gaining ground (Financial Times)

Citigroup counts the cost of departures (Financial News)

...as it looks to vest power away from London (Financial News)

There were 5,031 new City job vacancies in August ( Reuters)

The independent banking commission calls in banking bosses ahead of this week's statement (Guardian)

Emerging markets providing bulk of M&A activity (Financial Times

The salubrious details of the Goldman sex discrimination case (Telegraph)