The financial crisis, employment market and social media explosion have converged, providing a new level of clarity into what is happening in the world around us. Where was ground zero for this financial catastrophe? Well, according to the LinkedIn blog, five companies have shown the most action: Barclays (BCS), Credit Suisse (CS), Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM). Interestingly, Goldman Sachs (GS), among the biggest winners now that we're pulling out from the recession, didn't see as much play.

The expectation, last year, that damage to insurers' balance sheets and an increase in claims -- particularly for financial services liability coverage -- didn't materialize, as carriers had enough capital on hand to absorb the losses sustained on both sides of the balance sheet. As a result, insurance pricing has been kept under control.

Through the end of November, 1,122 CEOs have moved on, a decline of 17.6% year-over-year. Last year, 1,361 departures were seen by this point. If the trend continues, CEO turnover could reach its lowest level since 2004, when only 663 occurred.

The health care industry experienced the most changes, with 22 CEOs leaving their posts, bringing the total to 181 for the sector this year, topping all industries. The government and non-profit sector comes next with 148 this year, 18 in November. The financial services industry lost 116 CEOs, with only 10 happening last month.

Shares of Huntington Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ: HBAN) fell Friday afternoon after three days of gains as investors reacted negatively to news that the company planned to sell $400 million worth of common stock. At mid-afternoon Friday, shares of the Columbus, Ohio-based bank were down more than 2% to $4.41 a share.

On Friday, Huntington said it priced the shares at $4.20 a share, selling 95.2 million shares totaling some $400 million in gross proceeds. Deal underwriters have an 30-day option to buy another 14.3 million shares, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Early estimates of a contraction in the U.K. economy were not enough. First quarter 2009 estimates were revisited, showing a 2.4% fall in gross domestic product from the last quarter of 2008 to 2009. This downward revision made the first three months of the year the worst since people wore skinny ties, hated communism, and bore nicknames like "Buzz."

In the second quarter of 1958, U.K. GDP plummeted 2.6%, though the 2.4% threshold matches the depths hit in 1979. The original 2009 Q1 estimate was -1.9%, according to the Office for National Statistics in London.

In his Stellar Stocks Alert, newsletter advisor Richard Schmidt sees long-term opportunity in select brokerage stocks. Here, he looks at Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW) and E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC).

"Some of the strongest financials in the world have lost 60%, 70%, even up to 90% or more of their value in the last year. Shares of Charles Schwab have come down too. But the stock has lost less than 50%, at its worst.

"Most of that has come since October. We had hoped the stock would bottom. But the stock continued to drop through support, meaning the downtrend is still in place. We may eventually see it go down by more than 50%.

Research firm Punk, Ziegel & Co is putting a "buy" rating on Citigroup (NYSE: C). The research firm feels that the bank is the best proxy for investing in the global investment industry and that its write-downs are secondary. Quoted by MarketWatch, the firm said "The stock allows one to invest in the world's financial growth better than any other company. Others perform in one part of the financial sector or operate in one portion of the world."

That comment may be akin to saying that if you are going to drown in quicksand, you might as well find the best quicksand available. Citigroup is hardly a strong investment and the fact that its business operations are global and that it operates in many sectors has nothing to do with whether the bank can do well over the next year.

Citigroup is being scuttled by huge write-offs in its mortgage-related investment portfolio. Earnings from other divisions in the company are not likely to offset this and the bank may have to raise more capital. The resulting dilution could certainly drive the price of the company's stock down. There have also been comments from Wall Street that the big bank may have to cut its dividend. That is likely to make it much less attractive to a certain category of "yield-minded" investor.

Citi shares could be hit by more write-offs and the need to bring in a large sum of new capital.

That hardly makes it a "buy."

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

The stock market is like some punch drunk boxer who gets up after being knocked out only to be pounded yet again.

After rebounding for a milisecond, the Dow Jones industrial average ended the day below 13,000, down 170. The same investors who thought earlier in the day that the world wasn't going to end apparently have changed their minds yet again.

Remember that flicker of optimism earlier thiis afternoon.

Hester Capital Management's Craig Hester told Bloomberg News that, "The market to us looks very oversold and I think it's beginning to create some value in stocks."

Apparently, he wasn't alone.

Investors gobbled up shares of financial companies including Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER) that had been beaten to a pulp over the past few days. Even Bear Stearns Cos. (NYSE: BSC), which had been especially hard hit, rose for a while. Of course, they all fell by the close of trading.

Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE:MER) posted earnings above and beyond Wall Street expectations, proving the company's many naysers wrong.

The financial services giant posted earnings per share of $2.24 on revenue of $9.7 billion, easiily surpassing analysts' estimates of EPS of $2.02 EPS and $9.25 billion in revenue.

A few weeks ago, brokerage stocks were being crushed when Bear Stearns (NYSE:BSC) was facing sharp hedge fund markdowns from toxic mortgage losses. Bloomberg has an article pointing to some $11 billion that the Wall Street firms are having to eat because of a credit crunch on some of the private equity deals.

Chairman & CEO, Stan O'Neal, noted in the release that revenue diversification made the strong performance possible despite uneven market conditions in what he described as "at times, a hostile market environment." That is referring to the current mortgage and debt markets that have been punishing big Wall Street firms..

The firm did not offer any formal guidance since brokerage firms are subject to conditions in the stock and bond markets. Super-leveraged debt instruments and derivatives help brokers live by the sword and die by the sword. So, as long as the markets remain healthy overall, then Merrill and its main competitors among so-called bulge bracket firms should be fine.

Merrill Lynch shares had traded over $89.00 in early trading, but shares are nearly back to flat at $87.45 on the day.

Jon Ogg is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.