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So it’s back to the future time, a revival of TARP 1.0, a United States Mega Bad Bank, is now under serious debate in Washington, to take on this Kryptonite. That would be a return to the initial incarnation of TARP, which would have held a Dutch auction for these assets.

The breakup of Citigroup could be a harbinger of what is to come.

As Fox Business first reported starting in November, Citigroup has split into Citicorp and Citi Holdings, with Citicorp a return to its roots as a deposit taking bank, and Citi Holdings housing its bad assets.

With this move, Citi may be positioning itself to unload a huge slug of the $895 bn in bad assets at Citi Holdings onto the US Mega Bad Bank.

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Worse-than-expected reports from big financial companies such as Citigroup and Bank of America have weighed heavily on the results so far.

"It's not how many companies are missing," said John Butters, Thomson Reuters' senior research analyst. "It's the size of the companies missing and the magnitude of the losses."

Financials are currently expected to lose $12.5 billion this year as opposed to their profits of $5 billion a year ago. But financials aren't alone, with 7 of 10 S&P economic sectors due to post declines.

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unload a huge slug of the $895 bn in bad assets at Citi Holdings onto the US Mega Bad Bank.

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Citigroup Inc. advised BHP Billiton Ltd. shareholders sell call options to boost stock returns on speculation that shares of the world’s largest mining company will underperform its rivals amid concern over earnings.

The brokerage told shareholders to sell calls expiring in March at a strike price of 1,300 pence to take advantage of the “relatively high” price paid for the options. Investors would keep all the 88 pence premium paid for the contracts so long as the shares fail to rally above the strike level.

BHP shares have outperformed all of the other stocks in the Bloomberg Europe Metals & Mining Index over the last year, even after losing 17 percent of their value. Smaller Rio Tinto Group has dropped 68 percent in the same period. BHP shares advanced 0.6 percent to 1,172 pence as of 9:18 a.m. today in London.

That’s left the stock with “less potential upside” compared with its rivals, analysts including London-based Stuart MacDonnell wrote in a note published today, adding that “under the current commodity environment the company looks susceptible to further consensus earnings downgrades.”

Selling calls comes at a time when the price paid for options is “high” by historical standards, the brokerage said. Three-month implied volatility, which measures the price paid for options, is 78.3 for the mining company, according to Citigroup. That compares with an average of 44.8 for stocks in the benchmark Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 Index.

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Predictions for 2009

George Bush has ended his tenure as the most unpopular president in American history, having presided over the meltdown of the entire banking and mortgage markets and the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. Looking ahead, we are in for a slow recovery. That said, the vultures are already bidding for the remains of the subprime bonds. The catalyst to our crash will be the beginning of the credit recovery. The banks will eventually get their balance sheets in order, investors will be forced to go back in the debt waters rather than live with 1% returns. The equity market will take longer because no one knows how hard the ongoing recession will hit them.

Although the Dow Jones at 8,000 and the NASDAQ at 1,500 feel cheap, it may not yet be the bottom. Venture investing will be down in 2009, and private equity will be down but not big because most funds are sitting on piles of cash and companies will have nowhere else to go. Hedge funds will continue to feel the wrath of LPs, with increased redemptions curtailing their participation in the M&A, PIPE, and private placement markets. SPACs are dead. IPOs as a source of entrepreneurial motivation are over unless Washington rewrites the rules for emerging growth companies. M&A will be the strongest market for the emerging growth world in 2009.

The U.S. has a strong will and history for rapid recovery. That said, this was the mother of “financial failures”.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I think that the citi split was a clever money laundering move so they could pocket the bailout money.

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The New York Post's Jennifer Keil and Chuck Bennett reported in Monday's paper that Citigroup, which has received $45 billion in government bailout funds, is about to upgrade to a new $50 million, twelve-seat corporate jet.

The plane, the Dassault Falcon 7X, is a luxurious jet with a range of 5,950 nautical miles (meaning it can fly from New York to all of Europe and South America, as far east as Riyadh, and as far west as Honolulu or Petropavlovsk, Russia). The Post reports it has "plush interior with leather seats, sofas and a customizable entertainment center."

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