Audio of Ackman's press conference

The battle between Wells Fargo and Citigroup over Wachovia appears to have come to an end today with Wells Fargo as the winner. This post includes 2 images showing the bank branch coverage that will result from the merger.

Warren Buffett told CNBC's Becky Quick that the measure will help unfreeze the credit markets, but warned that it is not a "panacea" for the economy. He also revealed that he owns only two domestic stocks personally, Berkshire and Wells.

Today's Congress is ignoring its role as the primary creative force in today's problems. This transfusion is needed because: bad laws have obscured the values on financial institution balance sheets, and have created a clot in the credit arteries that keep the economy alive.

I received a lot of e-mails from subscribers on Monday after the collapse of Wachovia, asking me which bank I believe will be the next to fail. Most investors are afraid they will wake up next Monday morning with a worthless financial stock, whose deposits have been sold to another institution.

Hank Paulson wants to spend $700 billion to buy up banks bad debt in the hope it can ‘fix’ the crisis on Wall Street. But there are ways to profit from the madness. Martin Hutchinson has picked three winners.

The New York Times has an interactive graphic that visually conveys the impact the current market crisis has had on the financial sector. It has market cap scaled regions for two time periods, September 12, 2008 and October 9, 2007. It would be interesting to have a similar chart by a value metric, such as book value.

The SEC has it backwards

The SEC has it backwards

Your humble editor is skeptical that this latest financial rally will turn out to be anything of substance… except another shorting opportunity when the time is right.

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is! Robert Steel, President and CEO of Wachovia, spent 16.1 million dollars on 1 million shares.

Why Buffett likes Wells and US Bank so much, and why Wachovia is a trainwreck by comparison.

Bottom line: The current rout in financial sector shares might smell awful to the simple onlooker. But smart investors should know that it smells like the beginning of the end of their collapse, too.

Why won't execs stop making promises they are not 100% sure they can deliver?

Not so fast