So much so, that one Congressman jokingly accused the bank boss of suffering from 'Stockholm Syndrome', because of his reluctance to stick the knife in at Fed and Treasury officials who are commonly thought to have forced him to complete the Merrill acquisition, despite his own reservations about the deal and rumors that he was looking to walk away.

The New York Times reports that David Trone, a bank analyst over at Fox-Pitt Kelton, has nearly doubled his second-quarter earnings estimates for Goldman Sachs, predicting that revenues from the firm's fixed income, currencies and commodities unit will come in close to the first-quarter's record high of $6.6bn.

Trone estimates that revenues from M&A will fall 40% on Q1, although thinks that equity underwriting fees will rebound significantly. The analyst feels, however, that it may be difficult to keep up the momentum for the rest of the year, and he expects 'the business to bounce around for several quarters until the next big thing emerges to drive the new cycle'.

Finally, The Financial Times reports that BlackRock agreed to buy Barclays Global Investors Thursday, in a deal worth $13.5bn in cash and stock. Under the terms of the deal, Barclays will end up owning 20% of BlackRock, while Bank of America's ownership stake will fall to 35%. Other equity investors are thought to include the Kuwait Investment Authority, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and China Investment Corp.