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Russia was downgraded by Fitch this morning from BBB+ to BBB, the second lowest investment grade level. Both the MICEX and the rubble get additional pounding as a result.

• Alleged Saks acquisition candidate Baugur files for bankruptcy (Bloomberg)
• Toxic asset guarantees have won over bad bank: Senate to take easy yet ineffective way out as usual (Bloomberg)
• Financial triage means ta
  

• Good summary of Obama's first two weeks in office (New Editor)
• Live Nation and Ticketmaster merging (NY Post)
• Kyrgyzstan to force closure of airbase critical to US Afghanistan presence (NYT)
• UBS tried to sell Paine Webber as recently as few weeks ago (

Good to know that we are not the only ones scratching our heads over why the market was so much higher today. Goldman Sachs is also confused, but they are better than we are at goalseeking arguments to conclusions, so we present their commentary uninterrupted:

Last week's significant net rerisking in consumer services has continued and has now spread to the basic materials and consumer goods sectors. The only sector which saw a notable derisking was financials, with $25 billion in net notional, or 5,546 contract increase. Net single-name notional did not change from last week at $1.4 trillion, however the reduction in gross single-name notional continues and has dropped by $200 billion to $14.2 trillion this week.

Last week's significant net rerisking in consumer services has continued and has now spread to the basic materials and consumer goods sectors. The only sector which saw a notable derisking was financials, with $25 billion in net notional, or 5,546 contract increase. Net single-name notional did not change from last week at $1.4 trillion, however the reduction in gross single-name notional continues and has dropped by $200 billion to $14.2 trillion this week.

Och-Ziff filed its January results in an 8-K today. After a somewhat weak 2008 performance (granted, few can repeat Prentice Capital's 88% drop), which saw the flagship fund down 15.51%, its European fund down 17%, its Asian fund down 30.38%, and special situations down 8.01%, the fund had strong January results as follows:

Och-Ziff filed its January results in an 8-K today. After a somewhat weak 2008 performance (granted, few can repeat Prentice Capital's 88% drop), which saw the flagship fund down 15.51%, its European fund down 17%, its Asian fund down 30.38%, and special situations down 8.01%, the fund had strong January results as follows:

Today's curious equity market performance would lead many to believe that the market may truly have hit a bottom. Bad news gallored when stripped of their media spin, yet the market was up a solid 1.5%.

Sun Capital portfolio company Indalex, maker of extruded aluminum products, announced today it has not made the coupon payment on its 11.5% Notes due 2014 and has hired Jefferies as an advisor for its upcoming restructuring. Indalex said in a statement "The extrusion industry has experienced a deep and unprecedented downturn, and it is unclear when the downturn will end." The Company was acquired in 2006 by Sun Capital in a $425 million purchase from Honeywell International.

Maker of all things commodity (Rayovac batteries, Remington grooming products and manure) just filed for bankruptcy protection (Western District of Texas, 09-50456).

Maker of all things commodity (Rayovac batteries, Remington grooming products and manure) just filed for bankruptcy protection (Western District of Texas, 09-50456).

In a curious turn, Freddie just announced that it is piloting a new program designed to "keep more at-risk borrowers in their homes" which will be accomplished by using third-party servicers that specialize in servicing Alt A and other types of higher risk mortgages.

Total down -48.8% vs -39.3% Estimates.

Cars down -57.9%, trucks down -42.4%

Q1 2009 production forecast at 380,000 vehicles

Curious tidbits: there were no sales of the following cars and trucks in January countrywide:

Monte Carlo, SSR, GTO, Ion, Rendezvous, and Hummer H1

Working to calculate SAAR at this point, but it looks waaaaay lower than 10 million

From Daschle's statement: