Let's dive into the world of breaking news here, as the New York Attorney General's office has decided to mark the one-year anniversary of the financial meltdown by preparing charges against some Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) executives. Reportedly, the charges stem from the failure to disclose details about the company's acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

The Attorney General (Andrew Cuomo) is likely to file charges against the executives because of their failure to alert shareholders to mounting losses and accelerated bonus payments at Merrill. Earlier, a federal district judge rejected a $33-million settlement between BAC and the SEC over the same executive bonuses. This settlement was in relation to the fact that BAC did not inform shareholders of an agreement to pay Merrill Lynch execs billions of dollars worth of bonuses, the deal was struck before BAC acquired Merrill.

Brokerage house Charles Schwab & Co. (NASDAQ: SCHW) is facing the wrath of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The state's top attorney sent a letter to Schwab last Friday, warning that he plans to sue the firm for civil fraud in relation to its marketing and sales of auction-rate securities (ARS). Cuomo added that he is open to a possible settlement, although Schwab must be willing to repurchase ARS from its investors who are still holding them.

In response, Schwab is defending itself. "The Attorney General's allegations are without merit," stated the brokerage firm. "They unfairly lay blame on our company for an illiquid market and improper behavior by the large Wall Street firms."

Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET) is recently down $1.72 to $48.80. The New York Attorney General is expected to announce an industry-wide investigation of healthcare insurance companies, according to Reuters.

AET March option implied volatility of 34 is above its 26-week average of 29 according Track Data, suggesting larger price fluctuations.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

At long last I can give eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) a pat on the back about something. Most of you know that's pretty hard for me, but this time eBay has gone the extra mile to prove to me that it at least recognizes there are some nasty pirates and profiteers operating on its site. With the direction of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office, eBay assisted in putting the clampdown on an unscrupulous jewelry seller that was ripping off eBay customers by placing price inflating bids on its own merchandise.

EMH Group, the company in question, is said to have placed nearly a quarter million fraudulent bids on nearly $5 million worth of merchandise within the period of one year. Of course, EMH claims no wrong doing, but it has agreed to pay $400,000 in fines and will be "banned" from the online auction industry for four years. As for its victims, it is said that there will be a buyback incentive program "for certain items." I'll bet those certain items are all gold and EMH expects to purchase them back at the previous sale price. Yeah, ain't that just peachy.

Yes, I'll give eBay a pat on the back for exposing just how easy it has been to make millions of dollars of fraudulent business on its site. As far as Attorney General Cuomo's part in this, until he sends someone to prison for stealing from the public like this, in my opinion he's just blowing smoke in our eyes to the tune of $400,000. Without even checking, I'll give you 15 to 1 odds he's a Harvard man.

And so it goes.

Cardinal Health Inc. (NYSE: CAH) is the nation's number one supplier of support products and services for the health care industry. After a lengthy investigation by the New York Attorney General's office regarding the purchase of pharmaceutical products on the secondary pharmaceutical market, Cardinal Health announced December 26, 2006, that a settlement had been reached and that the situation is, for Cardinal, no longer an issue, except as pertains to their ongoing efforts to improve the security of the pharmaceutical products supply chain.

It should be noted that the $81 billion health provider Cardinal was only one participant in an investigation that involves health care players nation wide. Cardinal's stock value has deflated some over the past nine months, and may constitute a nice buy right about now.

The good news is that Cardinal has completed a comprehensive test of RFID technology, one of my pet projects. Cardinal has proven that RFID (radio frequency identification) tags can be applied to product, encoded en route, and then accurately read at normal production speeds during packaging and distribution of pharmaceuticals. The test has shown that RFID can be exploited within existing product flow models utilizing current equipment and materials. Cardinal reports encoding yields of 95% to 97%, and they expect they can fine tune for even higher yields. Yield simply means complete and accurate encoding in one production pass through.