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In a piece that would be hilarious if it wasn't serious, Bloomberg discloses that as a result of crushed consumer confidence, more and more Americans are preparing for the metaphorical (and literal) end of days.

"A growing number of Americans are stocking the basement with Spam and
marketable gold, while they peek out from behind the curtains with their firearm

Shareholder trigger fingers twitching. Market bottom speculation looks to be delayed by yet another day. Curiously, GE CDS wider by 20 bps from 700 on the news, despite the cash conservation nature of the move... nothing makes sense anymore

The bad news for creditors of bankrupt Lehman Bros just keep coming.

Today the CFTC, which Harry Markopolos had no choice words against in his congressional testimony, and so far has not seen a lot of public anger for lack of action and complacency, has started turning on the afterburners.

The ETF bubble looks like it may be the next one to burst. WSJ just out that the CFTC is probing the USO ETF for price moves coinciding with trades in and out of crude-oil contracts. The USO has recently gotten prominent media attention over allegations that it is a perpetually value bleeding asset, and potentially a pyramid structure.

Just what the auto industry needs: Ford, which may have foolishly avoided government aid so far, announced U.S. auto sales in February fell even more compared to January, when the annualized sales rate was the lowest since 1981. Ford sales analyst George Pipas also had this bleak comment to share "We don’t know where the bottom is." January's SAAR was 9.6 million and February numbers which comes out next week should further cement the case that U.S. automakers are simply unviable in current form.

Thanks to an intrepid reader who pointed out Seth Klarman's must-read 1991 book "Margin of Safety" is easily accessible on the internet, we are presenting the link to where it can be found on rapidshare.

Fox Pitt analyst Gary Ransom says to be very wary when Berkshire posts earnings tomorrow, warning results may be the worst since Buffett took over the company in 1965. As a result of equity losses and writedowns on derivative bets, the Oracle of Omaha's book value per share, or intrinsic value may have dropped by 8.5%, which will be only the second time this metric has declined under Buffett's command, the only previous time being 6.1% in 2001.

In an 8-K filed early today, MGM announced that on February 24 it had requested a full drawn down on its $4.5 billion revolver, which the banks satisfied yesterday.

In an 8-K filed early today, MGM announced that on February 24 it had requested a full drawn down on its $4.5 billion revolver, which the banks satisfied yesterday.

In a historic event that went largely unnoticed, last night ISDA disclosed it is open sourcing JP Morgan's legendary CDS Standard Model which it got ownerships of on January 29, thereby issuing a challenge to the global community of financial white hats to decompile the code and figure out just what the voodoo is the wizards in JP Morgan's Quantitative Research group have put

In a historic event that went largely unnoticed, last night ISDA disclosed it is open sourcing JP Morgan's legendary CDS Standard Model which it got ownerships of on January 29, thereby issuing a challenge to the global community of financial white hats to decompile the code and figure out just what the voodoo is the wizards in JP Morgan's Quantitative Research group have p

• Hungary wants $230 billion bailout package for Eastern Europe (Bloomberg)
• Citi will need a bigger boat (PR)
• Blackstone has $827 million Q4 loss, misses estimates, on real-estate asset writedowns (PR)
• Rosy assumptions hold down deficit (WSJ) [we jus
  

Economy's wheels are coming off.