The amount of money sitting in sovereign wealth funds grew in 2009. As financial markets around the world recovered from the severity of the financial crisis that struck in September 2008, the coffers of these unique financial entities swelled to $3.51 trillion, according to the latest research from the alternative investment analysts at Preqin.

Nonetheless, some funds did experience withdrawals by their respective governments. In some cases, governments used sovereign wealth fund assets to close budgetary gaps.

Chesapeake Energy (NYSE-CHK), a producer of natural gas, is recently trading at $18.25 in pre-open trading, above its close of $16.52. Mcclendon Aubrey Kerr, Chairman of CHK, sold 31,522,923 shares at $18.06 for $569,326,055 from October 8 to October 10. CHK will host an analyst meeting on October 15. CHK's Natural Gas futures are recently up 1.90% to $6.659 according to Bloomberg. CHK November option implied volatility of 198 is above its 26-week average of 57 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Lloyds TSB Group (NYSE-LYG), Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (NYSE-RBS) and HBOS Plc will get a $64 billion bailout from the U.K. government. LYG over all option implied volatility of 111 according to Track Data, suggesting large price movement.

Banco Santander (NYSE-STD) closed at $12.34. STD confirmed it's in talks to acquire full control of Sovereign - (NYSE-SOV). STD has a 24.9% stake in SOV and three seats on the board. STD November option implied volatility of 104 is above its 26-week average of 43, suggesting larger price movement.

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

Reuters reports that Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) is taking an enormous $5.7 billion write-down on losses from mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) and plans to raise $8.5 billion.

The biggest shocker was, as Reuters reports, that Merrill signed a contract with Singapore's Temasek, a sovereign wealth fund, that requires Merrill to pay $2.5 billion under terms of a previous stock sale to Temasek, along with $2.4 billion in required dividends to preferred shareholders. That's because under its previous deal, Merrill had agreed that if it sold shares at too low a price in the future, it would reimburse investors. Temasek has agreed to purchase $3.4 billion -- or 28% of the new offering. In other words, Merrill is paying an extremely high price for its capital.

The second shocker was how much of a write-down Merrill is taking on its portfolio of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Private equity fund Lone Star is paying 22 cents on the dollar, or $6.7 billion for CDOs with a stated book value of $30.6 billion. At that rate, the holders of $2 trillion worth of CDOs outstanding earlier this year would need to take a $1.56 trillion haircut if they sold all the CDOs. And I don't think they have nearly enough capital to be able to afford that.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Commercial Metals (CMC), KKR Financial (KFN), Career Education (CECO), Ann Taylor (ANN) and Intel (INTC) were today's noteworthy upgrades:

• CIBC upgraded Commercial Metals (NYSE: CMC) to Sector Outperformer from Sector Performer based on valuation.

• KKR Financial (NYSE: KFN) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform at Friedman Billings, following managements detailed conference call and managements prudent and rapid actions to address the sale of its Rambus (RMBS) portfolio.

• Bear Stearns upgraded Career Education (NASDAQ: CECO) to Outperform from Peer Perform based on valuation.

• Ann Taylor (NYSE: ANN) was upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Piper Jaffray due to the upside at the company's LOFT division and the firm's belief that there is upside to their 2008/2009 estimates for Ann Taylor.

• Credit Suisse upgraded shares of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) to Outperform from Underperform based on expected margin expansion, a more benign competitive environment in the MPU sector, better positioning vs. AMD (AMD) at the high-end, and strong demand trends...

OTHER UPGRADES:

• Citigroup upgraded Sovereign Bancorp (NYSE: SOV) to Buy from Hold.

• Network Appliances (NASDAQ: NTAP) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Merrill Lynch and Caris raised shares to Buy from Above Average.

• JP Morgan added Continental (NYSE: CAL) to its Focus List. Punk upgraded Washington Mutual (WM) to Buy from Market Perform.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).

Since the resignation of the company's CEO, Sovereign Bancorp (NYSE:SOV) has been the subject of buyout rumors. In fact, there has been heavy trading in the company's stock options. A possible suitor is Banco Santander Central Hispano, which already owns about 24.9% of Sovereign.

Of course, there has been lots of consolidation in the banking sector, a trend that should continue for some time. Still, why sell out now? Perhaps it would make more sense to fix the company and then sell it?

Interestingly enough, this is the view of an analyst from UBS, Matthew O'Connor. Actually, he thinks the company is already fully valued.

For more on this, you can check out this story on Reuters.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.