♦ With so many companies looking to tap into the $700 billion bailout, it's clear there won't be enough to go around, and a lot more work (and cash) is going to be needed to fix the problem. [WSJ]
♦ The latest company to convert itself into a bank to tap into government funds: American Express, which earned approval from the Fed to become a commercial bank yesterday as it seeks to cover rising credit card defaults. [Bloomberg]
♦ GM's possible bankruptcy was a major topic of conversation at the White House yesterday when Barack Obama met with George Bush. Meanwhile, shares of GM fell to $3.36 yesterday, its lowest level since 1949. [WSJ, Bloomberg]

♦ Citigroup is in talks to buy a regional bank, says the WSJ. Which bank it is they're planning to acquire isn't clear. [WSJ]
♦ The bailout of AIG that was originally going to cost $85 billion and was later revised to $123 billion? Yea, well, now it's $150 billion. [WSJ, Bloomberg]
♦ October was another down month for hedge funds: Since the beginning of September, the average fund has shed 10 percent. [NYP, Bloomberg]
♦ The man who may go down as the hedge fund industry's big winner in 2009: Jim Chanos, whose Ursus fund is up 50 percent so far this year. [NYP]
♦ Asian stocks rallied on Monday after China announced a $586 billion bailout package. [Bloomberg]

♦ Employers cut 240,000 jobs in October, bringing the year's total job losses to nearly 1.2 million. The unemployment rate is now 6.5%, up from from 6.1% in September. [CNNMoney]
♦ Why has the market been falling sharply in recent days? One reason is that hedge funds have been selling billions of their holdings to meet demands for cash from their investors and their lenders. [WSJ]
♦ Citigroup is reportedly planning another round of layoffs. [DB]
♦ Ken Griffin's Citadel says his fund lost about 22 percent last month. [NYP]
♦ The evidence is largely anecdotal, but it appears there's been an increase in suicides related to the financial crisis. [NYT]

It looks like private equity exec Leigh Abramson is holding up just fine amid the global financial crisis. The former Morgan Stanley Capital Partners honcho and managing director of Metalmark Capital picked up a duplex at 941 Park Avenue for $12.5 million, $2 million less than what the apartment was originally listed for back in April. (Abramson's timing also worked out in his favor: Metalmark was acquired by Citigroup in late 2007, back when the bank was still overpaying for acquisitions.) According to the listing, the five-bedroom apartment was the longtime home of the late pianist Arthur Rubinstein; now Abramson will get to chat about the unraveling economy with fellow resident Stan O'Neal, the disgraced former CEO of Merrill Lynch. Click through for a few photos and a floorplan of the spread.

JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon and Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit don't like each other much: In one widely-reported encounter between the two men earlier this year, Dimon told Pandit to "stop being such a jerk" on a conference call of Wall Street CEOs. It looks like Dimon is getting the last laugh. Not only did Citi announce another huge loss today, and embarrass itself last week with its failed bid to acquire Wachovia, now Dimon's JP Morgan has officially surpassed Citi as the largest bank in the US. If it's any consolation, Vikram, you do live in a nicer apartment building.

♦ Citigroup dropped efforts to block a deal between Wachovia and Wells Fargo yesterday afternoon; it will, however, continue to press ahead with its $60 billion lawsuit. [NYT, WSJ]
♦ Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack is back on the defensive today after the bank's shares dropped nearly 26 percent yesterday to $12.45, the lowest closing price in a decade. [DB, WSJ]
♦ Barclays, which acquired the assets of Lehman Brothers last month, now plans to cut another 3,000 jobs. [Fortune]

♦ The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that it would provide up to $37.8 billion to AIG. That's on top of the $85 billion lifetime the insurance giant got a few weeks ago. [NYT]
♦ Hank Paulson suggested yesterday the government may invest in banks as part of the next step in trying to resolve the credit crisis. [Bloomberg, NYT]
♦ Talks continue between Wells Fargo and Citigroup, who are both vying for control of Wachovia, although they appear close to a settlement. [WSJ, DB]

♦ The world's central banks are joining together to carry out a coordinated (and unprecedented) cut in interest rates, part of a plan to restore confidence in the global economy. [WSJ, NYT]
♦ Speculation that Morgan Stanley's deal with Mitsubishi UFJ had fallen through led to a huge drop in Morgan's stock price; the Japanese bank now says the deal will be done by this weekend. [Bloomberg]

♦ Invoking emergency powers, the Fed will create a special fund to buy up commercial paper—short-term debt that companies typically use for such things as payroll—in an effort to ease up the credit markets. [Bloomberg]
♦ Wachovia and its sparring suitors, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, have agreed to a two-day truce as negotiators try to work out a resolution. [WSJ, DB]
♦ Did you miss Lehman CEO Dick Fuld's testimony before the House yesterday? A recap. [WSJ, FT, NYT]
♦ Bank of America reports that profits plunged 68% in the third quarter. [CNNMoney]

Citigroup's lawsuit against Wachovia and Wells Fargo is now public: Citi is asking for a whopping $60 billion (including $20 billion in compensatory damages and $40 billion in punitive damages) for breach of contract and tortious interference. Of course, the suit may be moot if the Fed brokers a deal between the three banks, as it has been suggesting. But if you're bored today and you're not interested in looking through Sarah Palin's tax returns (or you're interested to see what you get when you hire 80 lawyers to work round the clock for an entire weekend), the lawsuit is after the jump.

♦ The legal battle between Citigroup and Wells Fargo raged over the weekend as both banks sought the upper hand in their bid for Wachovia. A Fed-led settlement which would divide Wachovia's assets may put an end to the dispute. [NYT, WSJ]
♦ Bank of America has agreed to settle government claims related to Countrywide Financial. The total price tag could exceed $8.6 billion. [WSJ]
♦ Dick Fuld will make his first appearance in weeks when he speaks before a House committee today. [NYP]
♦ Eli Lilly has agreed to acquire ImClone Systems for $6.5 billion. [Reuters]

Oops! Citigroup's marketing department had already started running ads announcing the purchase of Wachovia when it found out this morning that the bank was backing out of the deal and selling itself to Wells Fargo instead. [AdAge]

Remember how Citigroup was supposed to buy Wachovia earlier this week for pennies and then it was announced this morning that Wachovia had actually changed its mind and decided to sell itself to Wells Fargo? Yea, well, now Citigroup is majorly pissed and is threatening Wachovia with a lawsuit. [Dealbook]

♦ Citigroup isn't getting Wachovia after all: Just four days after the banks agreed to a deal, Wachovia has changed course and will now sell the company to Wells Fargo for $15.4 billion. [WSJ, NYT]
♦ The $700 billion bailout bill will reach the House for a vote today. This should be interesting. [NYT]
♦ JPMorgan Chase, which purchased a failed Washington Mutual last week, is already cleaning out the executive suite. [Bloomberg]

A November Vanity Fair story explores the "rivalry" between CNBC "Money Honey" Maria Bartiromo and the rookie anchor eight years her junior, Erin Burnett, whom they dub the "Street Sweetie." Both broads deny the existence of said rivalry; Burnett suggests it's a "male fantasy thing" and Bartiromo speculates that "maybe at the end of the day someone is doing this, planting this, because it puts more attention on the network." And like: mission accomplished! The two look stunning in the mag.* But like, hey, you know what else puts attention on the network? The actually-more-stunning collapse of finance as we knew it! So what do these two babelicious brunettes make of all that: anything? We don't really find out! Vanity Fair is too busy ruminating on how sexist the whole business of broadcast financial news is. Oh yeah, and the story is called "Who Is Wall Street's Queen B?"Burnett is depicted as the naive, bright-eyed boarding school popular girl who never had to pay her dues because Maria, the elder elegant Brooklyn-born street hustling Italian trailblazer, did it all for her. Maria doesn't really try to understand the "kids today" or their slutty outfits, as we learn through this admittedly awesome anecdote:

♦ President Bush turned up outside the White House early this morning to urge lawmakers to pass the $700 billion bailout and a vote is expected later today. Bored today? The full text of the bailout is here. [NYT, WSJ]
♦ Citigroup has agreed to buy Wachovia in a deal brokerered by the FDIC. [Dealbook]
♦ The governments of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have teamed up to bail out Fortis, one of Europe's largest banks. [WSJ, Bloomberg]

Another day, another bank disappears from the strip malls of America: A struggling Wachovia is now in discussions with Citigroup, although Wells Fargo and Banco Santander are said to be eyeing an acquisition as well. [Clusterstock, Dealbook]

Citigroup may be struggling to remain solvent amid the global financial meltdown, but don't think that the bank's attorneys at Skadden Arps are too busy with the crisis to defend Citi's good name. Yesterday the bank took action against Citi-Mobile, a Glendale, California-based company responsible for some of those ridiculous "mobile billboards" that manage to both clog up city streets and destroy the environment at the same time. The much bigger Citi, which Skadden rather optimistically describes in court docs as "one of the largest and most renowned" banks in the world, is a little bit concerned that the public will think the financial giant decided to buy a bunch of trucks, paint them crazy colors, and make money by marketing roast beef subs and cameras to innocent pedestrians. So they're asking a court to prohibit Citi-Mobile (and its parent company Citi-Advertising) from using the hallowed "Citi" name. Here's a thought: Why not just acquire the company? Citigroup would diversify a bit. And the mobile billboard business can't be any riskier than the financial services industry these days, can it? The full lawsuit after the jump.

Sallie Krawcheck, the Citi group executive (and financial press media darling) who once served as the bank's CFO but was pushed aside and placed in charge of Citi's wealth management division in 2007, is out of a job, according to the Wall Street Journal. Her exit didn't come as much of a surprise to Citi insiders. There has been tension between Krawcheck and Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit ever since he took over as CEO less than a year ago, and back in May Krawcheck criticized Pandit publicly before later backtracking on her remarks.

The Times reported on the front page of the paper today that Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack approached Citi chief Vikram Pandit on Tuesday night about combining the two banks. "We need a merger partner or we're not going to make it," Mack allegedly told Pandit. True? Probably not! Remember when Times said that Zoe Cruz would succeed Mack as Morgan's CEO and then she was fired 19 days later? Exactly. Well, the Times has since backpedaled: "The Times's two sources have since clarified their comments, saying that because they were not present during the discussions, they could not confirm that Mr. Mack had in fact made the statement. The Times should have asked Morgan Stanley for comment and should not have used the quotation without doing more to verify the sources' version of events." Maybe the Times also should try and spell names correctly when issuing corrections? [NYT]