A lobbying group backed by Elliott Management's Paul Singer enlisted the American Agriculture Movement, the American Association of University Professors and the Cattle Producers of Washington, to lend heft to investors' efforts to recover defaulted Argentinean debt through political channels. One problem? The trade groups aren't really sure how their good names got associated with anything having to do with Argentina, as The Wall Street Journal reports.

Another strange one: A former employee of William Koch—billionaire brother to Charles and David—says his boss kidnapped him after he raised concerns over a plan to evade $200 million in taxes.

Caxton Associates is trimming management fees to 2.6 percent form 3. percent, and performance fees to 27.5 percent from 30 percent, according to The Journal. Macro funds such as Caxton often charge higher fees than the traditional two and twenty; Caxton follows macro funds Tudor Investment Corp and Graham Capital Management in adjusting fee structures.

High-frequency trading firms are said to be dialing back in the face of lower profits.

James Gorman, Wall Street revolutionary?

Activist investors Warren Lichtenstein and Tim Brog are squaring off over board seats at supply-chain company ModusLink, according to The New York Post.

There's plenty for world finance chiefs to fight over in a series of upcoming meetings. There's Greece, of course, plus Spain, Italy and assorted other eurozone economies. Also: a territorial dispute between China and Japan, not to mention U.S. lawmakers' refusal to deal with the coming fiscal cliff.

Thousands of anti-austerity protesters marched through Madrid, banging pots and pans, to protest austerity measures.

Send in the troops! The Swiss Army is preparing to mobilize in event that the European debt crisis turns violent.

The London Whale—still mysterious/fascinating as ever.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that U.S. authorities are investigating a fourth JPMorgan trader in an ongoing probe into whether the firm's traders attempted to hide mounting losses on their derivatives trade. In a July conference call, bank executives said that losses had reached $5.8 billion.

The fourth trader, Julien Grout, has become a focus of the probe because he reported to Bruno Iksil, the trader known as the London Whale, according to Reuters. Mr. Grout, who still works for JPMorgan, is at least the seventh current or former employee of the bank's chief investment office to retain legal cousel.

Possible efforts by JPMorgan traders to hide losses are the focus of an internal investigation at the bank.

Update (2:14): In related news, JPMorgan tapped Craig Delany to head its chief investment office, according to a memo obtained by Reuters. The 41-year-old had served as chief operating officer of mortgage banking, and sits on the firm's executive committee.

(H/t Business Insider)

One of the defendants, Peter Ghavami, a Belgian who had been head of an investment bank in Moscow, was arrested in December 2010 at Kennedy Airport. In the Libor case, a number of banks are outside the United States, so individuals who might be involved should be wary about traveling to this country because of the risk that they could be detained.

Two other points from Mr. Henning's take on the Deutsche case: Prosecutors can probably count on a 10-year statute of limitations in Libor cases, and if you even considered manipulating interbank lending rates while sitting near a computer, you probably committed wire fraud.

Mostly, though, consider a fake passport.

JPMorgan's internal investigation into trading losses associated with the trader known as the London Whale is far from over, and has required the efforts of more than 100 hundred lawyers, Reuters reports. U.S. authorities have also begun interviewing witnesses, and a high-quality internal probe may be helpful in dealing with the government.

As Knight Capital was reeling in the aftermath of a $440 million trading loss, JPMorgan refused to accept thousands of securities Knight hoped to use to obtain financing to stay afloat, The Wall Street Journal reports. JPMorgan's hesitance came amid a review of the banks dealings with brokerages that use JPMorgan to clear trades.

The Journal gathered economists' expectations for Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's speech in Jackson Hole.

Rumor is that Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, a strident critic of proposed intervention by the European Central Bank in sovereign debt markets, may resign.

Nomura will take $1 billion of costs out of its wholesale unit, which includes investment banking and trading operations, according to Bloomberg.

Spain is considering pumping its own money into Bankia SA, the failed lender thought to be headed for a European bailout, in a move that would protect junior creditors, Bloomberg reports. Does Spain have enough cash?

Greece announced plans to slash public sector wages, pensions and social spending to find the savings needed to satisfy European rescuers.

The unemployment rate in the eurozone rose to a record 11.3 percent in July.

Nobody knows anything about investing, according to an SEC study on financial literacy, and so leave the stock-picking to the experts, writes Kevin Roose.

U.S. federal investigators are looking at whether Iksil, who was fired in July, and his superiors deliberately mismarked the value of some of the trading positions to try to cover up the losses. JPMorgan is also conducting an internal probe.

In addition to which, one imagines that these folks have indemnification clauses for just this sort of thing—that thing being losing $5.8 billion and possibly lying about it along the way. On one hand, that's of little consequence. If Mr. Iksil can't afford the best of counsel, he hardly deserves his nicknames; His legal fees, meanwhile, however aggressively billed, won't amount to more than a rounding error on $5.8 billion.

Still, it's worth a giggle to think of Mr. Iksil sending JPMorgan the bill for not one, not two, but three separate counsels.

Deutsche Bank is one of four European lenders being investigated by U.S. authorities for possible violations involving oil-trading and Iran, a source told Bloomberg.

Best Buy named Hubert Joly, the French-born chief executive of the Carlson hospitality chain, as the new CEO of the electronics chain. The electronics retailer is still jousting with founder Richard Schulze over the terms of a deal to allow Mr. Schulze to review company documents as he puts together a buy-out bid.

Spanish finance minister Luis de Guindos is seeking help from the European Central Bank to rein in Spain's sovereign borrowing costs.

The European troika is pressuring Ireland to close a legal loophole impeding foreclosures on loans originated prior to 2009.

JPMorgan tapped former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond to lead an inquiry into the billions of dollars in losses accrued by the bank's chief investment office and the trader known as the London Whale. The inquiry will double-check an earlier internal investigation.

An elder member of the Rothschild banking dynasty has taken a $200 million against the euro.

A Greek hedge fund manager tells Joe Weisenthal to brace for bad news out of Greece as summer holidays end.

Clifford J. White III, director of the Justice Department's U.S. Trustee Program, has presided over more active policing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings.

Some early investors in Groupon, including Marc Andreessen, are cashing in and walking away from the company.

Day-trading settlement: The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is expected to enter a settlement today with Swift Trade founder Peter Beck, and The Wall Street Journal as a long and excellent piece on the Hungarian-born entrepreneur's global operations. Mr. Beck founded Swift in 1998 after reading about internet trading on an airplane; By 2008, the network employed about 4,000 traders in places like Romania, China and Nicaragua, where the firm could hire on the cheap. Swift also took an aggressive stance towards the law, failing to create a supervisory structure, creating an atmosphere in which traders reportedly manipulated prices.

Post-whale world: The type of hedge fund that profited on JPMorgan's $5.8 billion trading loss in credit derivatives are looking attractive, Reuters reports, as investors seek less volatile investments. The obvious question (which probably has an obvious answer) is whether the credit funds are more stable, or just found themselves in the right place to take advantage of the trader known as the London Whale.

Whither Europe: Deutsche Bank blamed a 46 percent drop in a second-quarter earnings on the European debt crisis. BBVA said net income fell 58 percent, as Spain's real estate crisis weighed on earnings. Things may be getting worse: the bank will set aside more than 3 billion euros against souring real estate loans in the second half of the year, after provisioning 1.43 billion euros in the first six months. Greece is running out of cash to pay everyday expenses such as police department salaries and pension disbursements. Unemployment in the eurozone rose to 11.2 percent.

Tale of the tiger (cub): As a student at the University of Virginia, John Gerson talked his way into an internship at Julian Robertson's Tiger Management. Then joined John A. Griffin when the former Tiger deputy founded Blue Ridge Capital. Now Mr. Gerson, 37, has raised $1.2 billion to found a fund of his own, Falcon Edge Capital.

Fall guy? As Royal Bank of Scotland negotiates a Libor settlement with authorities investigating the bid-rigging matter, CEO Stephen Hester may be forced to leave his job ahead of plans.

Taking medicine: Nomura Holdings, Japan's biggest brokerage, faces unspecified penalties after regulators recommended that the firm be disciplined after employees participated in insider trading schemes by leaking information about public offerings.

Soccer riches: Manchester United set a range of $16 to $20 a share in updated documents describing its initial public offering; at a midpoint of $18 a share, the offering would value the British soccer club at $2.95 billion.

Market crash: The bottom is falling out of the market for used private jets, according to The New York Post, hitting the one percent in their wallets.

Kohlberg director out: Christopher Lacovara, one of two managing directors at Kohlberg & Co., the private equity firm founded by Jerome Kohlberg, has left the firm to pursue other opportunities. Kohlberg & Co. was founded by Jerome Kohlberg, who also co-founded buyout giant KKR.

Muni-rigging trial: Three former UBS employees go on trial today on charges they fixed bids on municipal bond investment contracts. Three employees of GE Capital were convicted on similar charges in May, though those defendants have asked the trial judge to toss out that verdict; banks have paid more than $700 million to settle charges arising from the probe that lands the former UBS bankers in court today.

Rapid rise: Matt Zames, the JPMorgan executive elevated by CEO Jamie Dimon to staunch losses on positions amassed by the trader known as the London Whale, is a "mathematician and a poet," apparently. The 41-year-old graduate of MIT's Sloan School of Business took charge of the firm's chief investment office in May to wind down positions that led the bank to billions in losses. Last week, Mr. Zames was named co-chief operating officer, placing him in charge of more experienced executives such as chief financial officer Doug Braunstein and head of regulatory affairs Barry Zubrow.

Whither Europe: European Central Bank president Mario Draghi has gone on the offensive, first signaling that the ECB would not allow the euro to fail, then working to build consensus for a plan to ease the region's sovereign debt woes. Count Paul Krugman as among the doubters. CEOs in London for the Summer Olympics are privately voicing concern about the state of the British economy, according to The Financial Times.

Hard to do: Bank of American explored a possible breakup in 2010 and 2011, The Wall Street Journal reports, but decided against splitting off Merrill Lynch or Countrywide units.

Drink up: Funds that invest in tangible assets such as wine, art and classic cars are attracting investors amid fears that the world's currencies are unstable.

Not so fast: The Securities and Exchange Commission froze the accounts of traders who allegedly made $13 million illegally trading ahead of the Chinese offshore oil explorer Cnooc's $15 billion acquisition of Calgary-based Nexen last week.

Provisions: HSBC set aside $700 million to cover U.S. regulatory matters after the bank was scolded by Congress for lax anti-money laundering standards and amid ongoing inquiries into Libor-rigging at banks worldwide.

Early Whale sighting: Bank of England noticed in 2010 that JPMorgan's chief investment office was taking outsized positions in certain markets, but didn't share the observation with regulators responsible for supervising the bank, The Wall Street Journal reports. The trades noted in two years ago were not the same bets on corporate credit derivatives that led to $5.8 billion in losses associated with the London Whale.

Whither Europe: Greece is "hugely off track" from the cost-cutting terms of its most recent bailout package, making it likely that the country will require a further restructuring of its debt, European officials told Reuters. Meanwhile, Spain's borrowing costs are making a sovereign bailout increasingly likely.

What will Libor cost? Investors would like British banks to estimate expected costs of settling investigationsinto the manipulation of interbank lending rates. Barclays paid about $450 million to settle inquiries into its role in the unfolding Libor-rigging scandal; Bloomberg cites one report estimating that civil lawsuits relating to the matter could cost the bank twice as much.

For sale: Former Lehman Brothers chief operating officer Joe Gregory is selling his 15,000 sq. ft. North Shore home, Business Insider reports. The asking price is $22 million.

On second thought... Fun lead in Dealbook: "A technology research analyst who gained notoriety for taunting the federal government over its pursuit of insider trading is expected to plead guilty in United States District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday."

Rare miss: Apple missed Wall Street's estimates for the company's earnings for the second time in nearly 10 years, as iPhone sales fell from the previous quarter.

Bharara sued: The New York Post reports that Yeshiva law student Benula Bensam is suing U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the U.S. Marshals and the Department of Justice for unreasonable search and seizure after marshals took her cell phone during the insider trading trial of former McKinsey & Co. CEO Rajat Gupta. Ms. Bensam was pulled from the Southern District courtroom in which the trial was taking place and asked to stop writing letters to the judge.

Hey, big boy: Several groups of traders are under investigation for colluding to rig interbank lending rates, The Wall Street Journal reports, and most of them are unconnected to the Barclays traders whose cheerful emails surfaced as part of that bank's $451 million settlement with U.S. and U.K. regulators.

Libor numbers suck...Says Alphaville Lisa Pollack. She means the estimates of what banks may pay to end inquiries into interbank rate-rigging, as well as attempts to quantify the size of the derivatives market that moves with Libor.

More London Whale: JPMorgan's chief investment office made large trades in corporate credit derivatives at the end of January and February that may have temporarily boosted the value of the CIOs holdings ahead of internal audits, Bloomberg reports. The lender said earlier this month that the CIO had lost $5.8 billion in the position associated with the trader known as the London Whale, and that an internal investigation had revealed some employees may have exaggerated the value of certain positions to conceal the extent of losses.

Buffett leads on ResCap? Warren Buffett is positioning himself to acquire all of Ally Financial's bankrupt mortgage lender ResidentialCapital, or ResCap, The New York Post reports. Mr. Buffett had already been named the lead bidder for a portfolio of mortgage loans, but it now seen to be overtaking Fortress Investment Group to acquire the firm's mortgage platform as well.

Scott Thompson resumes...his career, joining e-commerce start-up ShopRunner as chief executive officer, some two months after Mr. Thompson was ousted from the top job at Yahoo after activist investor Dan Loeb uncovered inaccuracies on the executive's resume.

Whither Europe: European inspectors are in Athens to decide whether to continue making bailout loans to the troubled country. Spain placed a three-month ban on short-selling stocks, and Italy put a one-week stop on short-selling a list of 29 financial companies. Moody's placed a negative outlook on Germany, citing increased chances of a Greek eurozone exit and continuing struggles in Spain and Italy.

Worst days past? Real estate website Zillow called a bottom on the housing market: "We expect home values to remain relatively flat as the market works through a backlog of foreclosures and high rates of negative equity,” chief economist Stan Humphries said in a release.

Smaller mac: McDonald's said second-quarter profit fell 4 percent.