Bank Holiday Papers: tips and comment

FT Lex Comment:

 * Summer boom, September gloom? -- Summer's over, kids. Mindful that September has consistently been the worst for world equities for more than a century, brokers are producing strategy reports mixing doom with equal parts gloom

 * US retail banking -- retail bank profitability at the lower end of the spectrum is under pressure as US regulators rein in controversial penalty fees

 * Pros vs amateurs -- some analysts may be good at timing stocks. Other have rare insight into a particular business, A few are known for being reliably wrong.

Other comment:

 * Appetite fades for 'top slicing' BBC funding as James Murdoch divides media and provokes Robert Peston (p.3)

 * Irish Republic's plan to rescue banks has been well received but it could complicate efforts to mobilise support for a new round of painful cuts (p.9)

 * Shoolwear spending disappoints retailers (p.10)

 * Challenges loom for Allied Irish Banks (p. 17)

THE TIMES