Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's revamped bailout plan doesn't appear to be providing Wall Street with much reassurance that the economy's going to get better anytime soon. The stock market has been plunging since Geithner's speech this morning, and the Dow is now down close to 350 points. [CNN, MW, BN]
• Everyone on Wall Street is waiting for Tim Geithner to take to the stage at 11am to outline the administration's new bailout plan. Among other things, he'll be announcing a new name for the bailout: TARP (or Troubled Asset Relief Program) will be FSP (or Financial Stability Plan) from now on. [BN, DB, CNN]
• UBS announced a quarterly loss of $6.9 billion and now says it plans to cut another 2,000 more jobs at the bank. Is there anyone left? [NYT, WSJ]
• Linda Chatman Thomsen, who has led the SEC's enforcement division since 2005, has stepped down from the job amid criticism. [NYT, NYP]
• One thing Wall Street has clearly screwed up as of late? Its PR efforts. [TDB]
• Private equity firm Fortress has slashed 11 percent of its staff. [DB]
• Strangely, there are few buyers for the crappy assets AIG is selling. [BN]
If you're a banker facing the very dire prospect of having your salary capped at $500,000 a year, it probably seems as if the absolute nadir has been reached. Sadly, though, there's yet a further spiritual level to sink to: the one where Slate's Jacob Weisberg comes riding in on his chariot to defend your honor with an earnest editorial.
• Details about the Obama administration's plan to revise the bailout are still sketchy, but more will be revealed by Tim Geithner tomorrow. [WSJ, BN, DB]
• UBS is slashing bonuses by 80 percent, but the bank says it does not have plans to get out of investment banking altogether. [BN]
• Barclays announced that quarterly profits exceeded analysts' estimates. [BN]
• More trouble for Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital. [DB, NYP]
• Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein addresses what went wrong on Wall Street in a op-ed piece for the Financial Times. [FT, FT]
• Sunday's New York Times, meanwhile, provides an account of what went wrong between Merrill's John Thain and BofA's Ken Lewis. [NYT]
• Some 3.6 million jobs have now been lost due to the recession. [WSJ]
• BofA chief Ken Lewis purchased 200,000 shares of the bank this week in an effort to convince the world he's bullish about BofA's future. [WSJ]
• Good work, Hank. The Treasury Department overpaid by about $78 billion when it handed over all that cash to big banks last year. [Reuters]
• A hedge fund manager, a brokerage trader and a financial adviser were charged on Thursday for taking part in an insider trading scheme. [DB]
• The feds have also accused two people in the M&A groups at UBS and the Blackstone Group of handing over info to an insider trading ring. [NYP]
• Fraud investigator Harry Markopolos, who testified on Capitol Hill yesterday, says he's turned over evidence of several other big frauds to the SEC. [CNN]
• The markets have been up amid speculation the grim unemployment numbers will force Congress to pass an economic stimulus package. [BN]
• Bank of America went ahead with the purchase of Merrill Lynch—even after having last-minute doubts—because Washington pushed it to do so. [WSJ]
• Yesterday's testimony by Harry Markopolos before a House subcommittee looking into the Madoff affair was eye-opening, to say the least. [NYT, Reuters]
• One damning accusation by Markopolos: Walter Noel's Fairfield Greenwich Group went on a "three-year auditing shopping spree." [Fortune]
• Another Markopolos revelation: The Wall Street Journal missed numerous chances to break the Madoff story open. [Clusterstock]
• Reaction to Obama's plan to cap Wall Street pay—and opinions as to whether it could even work or not—has been all over the map. [WSJ, BN, NYT]
• Erin Callan took a leave from Credit Suisse because she's been summoned to testify before a grand jury about the collapse of Lehman Brothers. [NYP]
• The number of new claims for jobless benefits reached its highest level since the 1982 recession last week. [WSJ]
Erin Callan, the rising Wall Street star who became the chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers only to be ousted a few months before the firm filed for bankruptcy, is leaving the new job she started just five months ago. Callan is taking a "personal leave" from her job as head of Credit Suisse's hedge fund division; Dealbreaker is now suggesting she could have had a nervous breakdown this morning. [Bloomberg]
Now that President Obama has announced a $500,000 compensation cap for senior Wall Street execs who work for banks that receive assistance from the federal government, Goldman Sachs has decided it would like give its bailout billions back. "It would send a very good signal if the firm could repay the money," said David Viniar, Goldman's chief financial officer. Guess this means Jon Winkelried can take his Nantucket estate off the market! [Bloomberg via Dealbreaker]
• More details about President Obama's plans to limit Wall Street pay are emerging. So is plenty of criticism. "I don't think the president should paint everyone with the same brush," says JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon. [BN, WSJ, BN]
• Wells Fargo has scrapped plans to host a employee conference in Las Vegas after the bank was pummeled with criticism. [WSJ]
• A dozen top bankers from Merrill-BofA have defected to Deutsche Bank. [TD]
• Lazard's fourth-quarter profits dropped by 50 percent. [DB]
• Daniel Och is doubling down on his hedge fund, Och-Ziff. [WSJ]
• Both Citigroup and the Mets say they're standing by their stadium plan. [NYP]
• Bloomberg LP is laying off staff. [Clusterstock]
• The House will hear testimony about Bernie Madoff today from Harry Markopolos, the investigator who tried to blow the whistle on him. [NYT]
• The chief executives of nine Wall Street banks have been "summoned" to Washington to testify before Congress next week. [BN]
• UBS has held talks with Wachovia about combining their wealth management units; this comes amid the news UBS tried to sell its brokerage unit to Morgan Stanley late last year. [NYP, Reuters]
• After repeatedly saying it wasn't a possibility, Citigroup is now contemplating backing out of the $400 million deal to name the Mets' new stadium. [WSJ]
• Under pressure to boost lending, Citigroup says it will spend $36.5 billion to issue new mortgages and make credit card loans. [AP]
• Credit Suisse is cutting bonuses by 55%. [BN]
• What's BofA been doing with its bailout cash? Hosting parties. [ABC News]
• President Obama is expected to push for tight restrictions on executive compensation in order to improve public perception of the bailout. [WSJ]
• A group of angry Bank of America shareholders will demand that Ken Lewis get the boot at the bank's upcoming annual meeting. [NYP]
• Lehman Brothers is still hiring people to help wind down the firm. And it's receiving a ton of resumes from out-of-work Wall Streeters. [WSJ]
• Weill-gate continues: Now it turns out Sandy Weill used a Citi jet to go on a Mexican vacation, although he may reimburse Citi for some expenses. [NYP]
• Deutsche Bank plans to cut bonuses by an average of 60 percent. [BN]
• Fortune explains why Merrill had such a disastrous fourth quarter. [Fortune]
• Consumer spending fell in December for a sixth consecutive month. [BN]
• Andrew Cuomo may demand the return of $4 billion in bonuses paid by Merrill Lynch just before it was acquired by Bank of America. [BN]
• U.S. GDP shrank 3.8% in the fourth quarter, the most since 1982. [BN, NYT]
• Two senators have introduced legislation to regulate hedge funds. [NYT]
• A handful of ex-Merrill execs were victims of Bernie Madoff. [WSJ]
• More layoffs at Morgan and Goldman are in the works. [Dealbreaker]
• A silver lining to the recession (at least for non-lawyers): Corporate firms are dropping rates and looking at "alternative billing practices." [NYT]
• "Private equity is not dead," says Henry Kravis. Glad to hear it! [DB]
Two weeks ago, we pointed out one of the most ridiculous things that embattled Citigroup was spending money on as the bank struggled to remain solvent: the collection of fantastic perks being doled out to Sandy Weill, the company's former chairman and chief executive, a retirement package that included trips on the Citi jet, a full-time car and driver, and a 10-year lease on office space in the GM building. Today we take our hat off to Weill: The Post reports that he's given it all up. The company announced yesterday that Citi and Weill "mutually agreed to end those benefits in April 2009." [NYP]
• JPMorgan had concerns about Bernie Madoff this fall and decided to pull its own money from Madoff's fund. Why didn't the bank inform its clients? [NYT]
• Andrew Cuomo plans to expand the scope of his investigation into the bonuses paid by Merrill Lynch. [WSJ]
• BofA is planning to defer bonus payments to some staff this year. [FT]
• UBS has cut its bonus pool for 2008 by more than 80 percent. [BN]
• Wall Street bonuses totaled $18.4 billion in 2008, down from about $33 billion in 2007. [NYT, BW]
• Last year will go down as the worst for new home sales since 1982. [WSJ]
• Ford reported a net loss of $5.9 billion for the fourth quarter. [CNN]
• Interested in a Bernie Madoff action figure? You're in luck. [Clusterstock]
