Thursday morning headlines

Stocks edge lower: Wall Street is looking for its seventh straight positive session, but there are a bunch of crosswinds today. Dow is down is early trading.

Financial reform almost done: Senate is expected to vote this morning; final approval could come soon after. (Reuters)

Devil in details: Passing the bill is one thing - writing the hundreds of new rules mandated by the legislation is quite another. It could take years. From the LAT:

The Securities and Exchange Commission, by one analysis, is expected to hold nearly 100 rulemaking procedures resulting in hundreds of itemized regulations. Altogether, about a dozen federal agencies are expected to handle nearly 250 rulemakings, according to a report last week by the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Falling foreclosures: June filings in California were down 4 percent from the previous month and 31.6 percent from June 2009, according to RealtyTrac. The state had one filing per 194 households; Nevada still outpaces all others, with one per every 88 households.

BP update: Engineers say they have fixed a leak that developed last night. It's been holding up the testing of a shut-off cap that would stop the gusher. (NYT)

Bank exceeds forecasts: JPMorgan Chase, first of the major banks to report second-quarter earnings, did really well, even releasing money from reserves it had set aside cover future losses. (NYT)

Prominent construction firm acquired: Tishman Construction, which worked on the original World Trade Center and MGM Mirage's CityCenter in Las Vegas, is being bought by L.A.-based engineering firm Aecom Technology for $245 million in cash and stock. (LABJ)

Nutty salaries in Bell: City manager is making almost $800,000, the chief administration officer almost that much, and the police chief is at $457,000. Oh, and Bell is one of the poorest cities in L.A. County. From the LAT:

[Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo], who has run Bell's day-to-day civic affairs since 1993, was unapologetic about his salary. "If that's a number people choke on, maybe I'm in the wrong business," he said. "I could go into private business and make that money. This council has compensated me for the job I've done."