Citigroup Inc. (C) Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit and Chairman Winfried Bischoff will forgo 2008 bonuses after the bank lost three-quarters of its market value and got a $45 billion U.S. bailout, Pandit said in a memo to employees.

Robert E. Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary who serves as an adviser to the New York-based company, declined a bonus for a second straight year, said the memo sent to Bloomberg News by Citigroup spokesman Michael Hanretta. According to Bloomberg, senior leadership committee members will get smaller awards than last year.

“The harsh realities of 2008, primarily our earnings results, mean that our bonus pool is dramatically lower,” Pandit said in the memo.

Year-end bonuses, which typically account for about two-thirds of Wall Street compensation, are being cut this year after the U.S. government rolled out a

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a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZckZ-8naz0/SSWSXX4HlrI/AAAAAAAACMA/tR_Tsoiq2-c/s1600-h/ludacris.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 321px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZckZ-8naz0/SSWSXX4HlrI/AAAAAAAACMA/tR_Tsoiq2-c/s400/ludacris.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5270779869151073970" border="0" //aI was on CNBC on Monday talking about whether or not insider buying was important and whether it made sense to buy along with Vikram Pandit into Citigroup (C).br /br /My comment was it shows confidence on the part of management which is good but that it does nothing to tell us where the next 30-40% in the price would be.br /br /Well, 72 hours later and we got our down 40%/br /br /Absolutely Ludacris.

Embattled U.S. banking giant Citigroup Inc. (C) has agreed to buy back $17.4 billion of assets remaining in a series of funds known as structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, after it previously agreed to guarantee the liabilities in those funds.

In a separate story today (Wednesday), Wall Street banking analyst David Trone said that he expects higher credit costs and additional losses to force Citi to take $3 billion in write-downs in the year’s final quarter, a realization that prompted him to boost his quarterly loss estimate for the company and cut his target price for the stock.

“The key question is whether management will be able to continue to find buyers for business units, which is necessary to fortify the capital base against further credit losses and write-downs,” Trone, an analyst with Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochrane Caronia Waller, wrote in a research note to clients.

Fox-Pitt boosted its quarterly loss

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Yesterday we had no idea why NuVasive (NUVA) was being pummeled and threw out a guess that it had to do with the DOJ investigation into Medtronic's spine product, Infuse. Yesterday Medtronic (MDT) had a disappointing report but they only compete in the spine area - there is a news report that the feds are investigating off label use of a Medtronic spinal implant - I don't know about this product in relation to NuVasive's product line to know if this is the cause... I'd be curious to hear the analyst community's take on this one. So this could be guilt by association or in this market, a hedge fund liquidating but we've seen NuVasive drop off a cliff the ...

What will Paulson say?   Dollar remains well bid…   How long for Safe Haven buyers?   G-20 Schmee 20! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Well… Nothing has changed since I left you last Wednesday. The awful economic data just keeps piling on, and the dollar gets bid up on safe haven purchases. We did see the Eurozone and Japan announce that they are in a recession… Chris was kind enough to leave me the following, so here’s some more Chris….

“The dollar weakened slightly after the US Industrial production numbers showed a rebound in October. The 1.3% monthly gain sounds great, but it followed September’s drop of 3.7% due to the Gulf Coast hurricanes. After adjusting for the effect of the hurricanes and a strike at Boeing, output dropped .7 percent during each of the past two months. The trend continues to be very weak, and the recession which currently grips the US is now expected

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t’s official, for what it’s worth. Both Europe and Japan are in recession. The Eurozone contracted by 0.2% for the second straight quarter. Germany (the largest economy in Europe) and Italy (fourth largest) both shrank in the third quarter. Japan’s economy-the world’s second largest-shrank by almost half a percentage point in the third quarter.

The world’s largest economy, as you already know, is in recession too. In the U.S., financial capitalism is imploding. Citigroup’s CEO Vikram Pandit told analysts the company would lay off over 50,000 workers. He cited rising loan losses and an economy slowing much faster than the company previously expected.

Gulp.

As over-sold as we believe Australian stocks are at the moment, we’d be foolish to ignore the warning signs flashed yesterday all over the globe. Bill had better take down the crash alert flag and run up the depression alert flat.

World GDP is around $54 trillion. The U.S., Japan,

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Citigroup Inc. (C) today (Monday) unveiled plans to cut more than 50,000 jobs in the “near term” and slash expenses by 20% to preserve capital as it faces a global slowdown that’s expected to push well into 2009.

The cuts are on top of the 23,000 jobs eliminated so far this year. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit plans to whittle the company’s workforce down to 300,000. By the time Pandit puts down the machete, he’ll have lopped off about 20% of the company’s headcount since Citigroup’s peak.

Just last week, Citigroup announced the release of 10,000 employees in addition to hiking interest rates an average of 3% for about one-in-five of its credit card holders.

Since the subprime market caved in last year, bank and brokerage firms around the world have shed nearly 160,000 jobs, Bloomberg reported. Citigroup’s plan to let go 50,000 is the largest

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A must read article on Minyanville.com puts the smack down on General Electric (NYSE:GE) shares, and another one from Bloomberg.com isn't going to help shareholders come tomorrow or the foreseeable future.  GE shares get ready to battle the media. Let's face it, when fear is driven into the hearts of investors, no matter how it gets there, word of mouth, CNBC, your baby's momma -- it's fear none the less. When that happens, investors bail, and the selling could jump start now that the media is tearing GE a new one. General Electric (NYSE:GE) appears to be a "cheap stock" when you consider traditional investing measures: P/E now under 10, at 7.67. Shares are of GE are now $16 down 58% in the last year. It's a company we have all grown up with, same ...

Demand Drops Crude; Volkswagen Races Ahead; Yen’s Strength Sinks Stocks; Verizon Dials Up Gains; Sept. Home Sales Up; Wal-Mart Scales Back; Citi Rejects Goldman Merger

Crude oil for December delivery declined 1.4% yesterday (Monday) with a 93-cent drop to close at $63.22 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil futures are down 57% from the July 11 record of $147.27 and 31% down from a year ago, Bloomberg News reported.  “With all of the stock markets going down, there’s going to continue to be downward pressure,” said Michael Fitzpatrick, vice president for energy risk management at MF Global Ltd. (MF) in New York. “There’s not a lot that can be done to stop this downward spiral right ...

U.S. stocks yesterday (Monday) staged their biggest rally since the Great Depression – with the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring an all-time record 936 points – on a Federal Reserve-led push to flood the ailing global financial system with dollars and on a U.S. government plan to buy stakes in banks.