Ebb & Flow

Echoing a trend seen on the company side, banks both big and small continue to search for the headcount sweetspot in the midst of the bear market. Last week's choppers included merchant banker Thomas Weisel and Banc of America.

Weisel quietly let go 100 employees, reducing its headcount to 500. The cuts come a little more than a month after the firm agreed to pay a $12.5 million fine to settle claims made by state and federal regulators that it misled investors with stock recommendations to win investment banking business. Weisel was the remaining holdout of the 12 Wall Street firms that U.S. regulators originally targeted. ...