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Comment and analysis from Monday’s FT:

Lina Saigol: M&A can’t get no satisfaction
Are the rock stars of M&A banking an endangered species? It’s certainly starting to look that way. Ask any chief executive of a large global company to name Wall Street’s top dealmakers and they will start to stutter.

Tony Jackson: On speculation and food prices
Is the sheer weight of money going into agricultural derivatives pushing food prices up? No, say those who make money from those instruments, such as the investment banks. Yes, say those who fear being squeezed, such as the farmers. Bear one chilling fact in mind: in real terms, prices are nearer the bottom of the range than the top.

View from the Markets, video: China outlook
HSBC’s Steven Sun discusses his rationale for being “cautiously optimistic” about China’s A-share market and about where HK’s Hang Seng and Shanghai’s Composite indexes will end this year.

Online Q&A: China’s development
Chinese companies are set to become strong competitors for global market share, but what are the implications? Post a question for JPMorgan’s Jing Ulrich.

John Gapper: Taxing Harvard’s $36bn hoard
Although universities such as Harvard and Yale can be regarded as some of the world’s biggest hedge funds, they have tax-exempt status. Understandably, the move by the state of Massachusetts to impose a 2.5 per cent tax on its biggest university endowments is causing an outcry. Should they be taxed?

Comment: Wolfgang Münchau on the euro
Successive French presidents have tried but failed to give the eurozone a layer of gouvernance économique beyond the present institutional setting. The beneficiary of this stalemate is the European Commission, which last week produced a level-headed blueprint on the future of the eurozone.

Lex: European earnings
Objects under stress, from sapphire crystals to tectonic plates, seem to fracture in a similar way. The trick is to spot the hairline cracks when they first appear. Are such markers starting to show in the earnings of European companies?