So much for that little rally last week. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 290 points today, making it the biggest one-day selloff in more than 2 months, and the S&P shed more than four percent. Jim Cramer deceives us once again! [CNN, WSJ, NYT]

• Stocks are down in early trading today as investors brace for disappointing earnings as well as signs the recession is getting worse. [WSJ, BN]
• Bank of America reported first quarter profits totaled $4.2 billion and revenues almost doubled, not that any of that will do much to soothe angry investors, who are pushing for a change in management. [NYT, WSJ, [NYT]
• Citigroup's first quarter profit of $1.6 billion last week? That may have been the product of creative accounting more than anything else. [NYT]

Wall Street has closed up for six weeks in a row now, the first time this has happened since 2007. And you thought Jim Cramer was kidding. [NYT]

Break out the bubbly and bring back the bottle service, because the huge banks that nearly collapsed on themselves in a terrifying Domino Effect of Financial Doom are back in the black, baby!

It's a good thing financier Steve Rattner only (allegedly) invested in movies to (allegedly) bribe state officials, and not because he thought he had a talent for picking quality films. The trailer for Chooch, the movie that Rattner (allegedly) paid $88,000 to obtain the distribution rights for, couldn't be more painful to watch. Of course, Rattner's decision to (allegedly) buy the DVD rights to the movie did help his Quadrangle Group allegedly rope in a $100 million investment from the New York state pension fund, not that means very much now that the (alleged) scheme has been exposed and the payments are under investigation. But it's a good thing they don't prosecute people for crimes against culture or Rattner would really be in trouble right now.

• Citigroup posted its first profit in 18 months today, which made Wall Street very happy and sent Citi shares up to a whopping $4. [WSJ, DB]
• GE's first-quarter profit fell less than expected, dropping 35% compared to a year earlier, results that gave shares a boost in early trading. [BN, WSJ]
• AIG chief Ed Liddy still owns a big stake in Goldman Sachs, info that will be most pleasing to Goldman conspiracy theorists out there. [NYT, NYT]
• Is the banking business showing signs of recovery? [NYT]
• Carl Icahn and Kirk Kerkorian are locked in battle over MGM Mirage. [WSJ]
• General Growth Properties's bankruptcy will make hedge funder Bill Ackman a very rich man. And he already happens to be a very rich man. [NYT]
• The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco now says it was a mistake to allow Lehman Brothers to collapse. Now you tell us? [BN]

It looks like someone's evening was just ruined: Steve Rattner, the high-profile financier who was responsible for managing Michael Bloomberg's fortune until recently, and who now heads up the Obama administration's auto task force, is reportedly one of the executives who has been tied to the alleged kickback scheme at New York state's pension fund, according to "a person familiar with the matter" who spoke with the the Wall Street Journal.

• JPMorgan Chase reported a $2.1 billion profit in the first quarter, exceeding estimates. Unlike Goldman, though, Jamie Dimon says the bank hasn't decided whether to return the $25 billion it's received in bailout money. [DB, WSJ, BN]
• General Growth Properties, the second-largest mall operator, filed Chapter 11 today, making it one of the largest real estate failures in history. [AP, WSJ]
• AIG is close to a deal to sell its auto insurance business for $2 billion. [FT]
• Investors remain concerned about the situation at GE and whether the company will be forced to go out and raise additional capital. [WSJ]
• Foreclosure filings jumped 24 percent in the first quarter. [CNN]
• Blackstone boss Steve Schwarzman says he's really worried about the "decline of capitalism." But he's got $25 billion sitting on the sidelines, and he's ready to pounce at any second assuming the world isn't ending. [Fortune]

• UBS is cutting another 7,500 jobs after posting a $1.8 billion quarterly loss and clients pulled more than $20 billion out of the firm. [BN, NYT]
• Andrew Cuomo strikes again: Carlyle Group is now under investigation by the attorney general and the SEC over whether it illegally paid third parties to secure $1.3 billion in investments from New York's pension fund. [BN]
• BlackRock plans to raise $5-$7 billion to scoop up toxic assets. [Reuters]
• Scandal du jour: Danny Pang, who heads up the $4 billion fund Private Equity Management Group, has a few questions to answer, it would seem. [WSJ]

• Stocks dropped at the opening bell this morning following the Commerce Department's report that retail sales fell 1.1 percent last month. [WSJ]
• The SEC is looking into whether Bank of America broke the law by not telling shareholders about Merrill Lynch's plan to pay out billions in bonuses. [FT]
• President Obama is expected to tap Fannie Mae chief Herb Allison to head up the government's $700 billion financial rescue program. [WSJ]
• From Dick Fuld to Tim Geithner, Steve Rattner to former AIG chief Bob Willumstad, the big guns of finance have a friend in Michael Bloomberg. [NYT]
• Lehman Brothers "is sitting on enough uranium cake to make a nuclear bomb as it waits for prices of the commodity to rebound." No, this is not a joke. [BN]

And you thought Wall Street was struggling. Goldman Sachs announced a first-quarter profit of $1.66 billion today, a 13 percent bump from what the bank earned during the quarter of 2007. Goldman also announced plans to raise $5 billion via a stock offering so it can pay back Washington the $10 billion it's received in bailout funds thus far. But don't mistake this for a grand civic gesture on the part of Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein.

Last month it was widely reported that free-spending, once-cool designer Marc Ecko's empire was on the verge of bankruptcy. Today, we scored an internal memo from Ecko (kind of) reassuring his employees. And another rumor!

When Mort Zuckerman first revealed that he'd lost a bundle to Bernie Madoff via money manager Ezra Merkin, he seemed to brush it off, suggesting he'd only entrusted a small part of his charitable trust to Merkin. A few days ago, he revealed that it wasn't just his charitable foundation that fell victim; he lost $15 million of his own money, too. But the scandal may have cost him a good friend as well. Zuckerman's lawsuit, which you can view below, says Zuckerman had forged "a close relationship" with Merkin up until news of the scheme came to light.

• The Treasury is expected to announce in the next few days that it will be extending bailout funds to a handful of life insurance companies. [WSJ]
• Brian Moynihan, who took over Merrill Lynch after John Thain was ousted, is emerging as a potential successor to Bank of America chief Ken Lewis. [WSJ]
• Not that Lewis necessarily needs to be replaced, at least according to Meredith Whitney, who (bizarrely) says Lewis has "done a great job." [BN]
• Blackstone, KKR, and Carlyle are in the running to acquire the mobile phone operations that Verizon Wireless is selling now that it's acquired Alltel. [BN]
• Looks like Jim Cramer has a new enemy. Nouriel Roubini is calling the CNBC star "a buffoon," and Cramer has since responded in kind, of course. [NYP]

The slack economy is costing America more than $1 trillion per year in lost output. But there's an upside: Great deals, on everything!

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein addressed the Council of Institutional Investors this morning and addressed the issue of how banks pay their employees, suggesting that Wall Street "apply basic standards to how we compensate people in our industry." (It's unclear if these "standards" would apply to Blankfein personally, who earned nearly $70 million in 2007 and $43 million in 2008.) But you have to give him points for the warm welcome he gave the ladies from Code Pink, who rushed the stage during his speech with a giant sign that said "We want our $$$$$ back."

Andrew Luan worked at Deutsche Bank until recently. When he didn't get paid a bonus, he quit his job, but he didn't plan on spending the next six months in the company of his Wii, waiting around for the job market to improve. Luan launched a "financial meltdown tour" this week, "guiding packs of mostly European tourists around the epicenter of the collapse—and explaining his own role in the crisis along the way." (He was a CDO trader at Deutsche Bank where he says he shorted collateralized mortgage-backed securities.) Sounds like time and money well spent: "For only $40, he'll show you the word integrity engraved on the front of the New York Stock Exchange—and tell you about his all-male bond-trading desk's workplace push-up contests." [The Big Money]

• A half-dozen bidders have emerged for AIG's asset management unit, although efforts to sell it have been "complicated," not surprisingly. [WSJ]
• Congressman Dennis Kucinich has asked the SEC to determine if Bank of America violated the law by not disclosing Merrill Lynch's bonus plan. [DB]
• GM is speeding up preparations for a possible bankruptcy filing. [BN]
• Quadrangle Group has halted fundraising for its next fund. [Crains]
• The Tokyo office of Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity has been closed. [DB]
• RBS may eliminate an additional 9,000 jobs. [BN]
• It's never been a better time for a hostile takeover. [NYP]
• What's Hank Paulson doing with his money these days? He's backing his son's effort to bring Major League Soccer to Portland, Oregon, that's what. [BN]

ABC News caught up with financier Allen Stanford, an interview that will be broadcast on World News with Charlie Gibson this evening. You can see part of the chat online, though: Watch along as Stanford weeps at his current predicament and then threatens to punch interviewer Brian Ross in the mouth for having the nerve to ask Stanford if he was operating a big Ponzi scheme. [ABC News]

• Wall Street retreated this morning after a four-week rally amid concern about the banking sector and after IBM's attempt to buy Sun unraveled. [WSJ, CNN]
• The latest Washington official facing questions about potential conflicts of interest: Larry Summers, who collected $5.2 million in 2008 working one day a week for D.E. Shaw before joining the administration. [NYT]
• Tim Geithner says that the Obama administration is prepared to oust top financial executives if their firms require more public aid. [FT, DB]