As if there weren't sufficient causes already to refer to CIT Group (NYSE: CIT) as "beleaguered," the list just got longer. This morning, the financial services firm delayed filing its second-quarter report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), citing the ongoing restructuring of its debt as a mitigating factor.

Specifically, CIT told the regulatory agency that it could not meet Monday's 10-Q deadline "without unreasonable effort and expense," since executives have been spending most of their time lately attending to restructuring needs. The company is expecting a second-quarter loss in excess of $1.5 billion, thanks in large part to a loss totaling $2.1 billion from its discontinued home-lending operations.

Monsanto Co. (NYSE: MON) pleasantly surprised the Street with a stronger-than-expected third-quarter profit. This morning, the company reported quarterly net income of $694 million, or $1.25 per share, besting analysts' expectations for a profit of $1.18 per share. Net sales arrived at $3.2 billion, down 11% from the year-ago period.

Additionally, Monsanto said it will create a separate division for its herbicides business, in order to "better align spending and working capital needs." The firm will also undergo a restructuring that will result in 900 lost jobs, or less than 4% of its global workforce. The change will translate to a fourth-quarter charge of roughly $350 million, or 41 cents to 47 cents per share.

In a clock-stopping move, the United Auto Workers and GM have come to an agreement on a health care deal. The key provision of the deal is that GM would contribute shares instead of cash to a health-care trust known as a Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association (Veba).

In so doing, the UAW would own 39% of GM. The mix of ownership would then be 50% to the government, 39% to the UAW and 10% to the bondholders, with the remaining 1% for current shareholders. The agreement still must be ratified by GM workers.

A report today in The Wall Street Journal [subscription required] indicates that the restructuring of American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) could be a multi-year process.

The paper cites an internal email sent to AIG employees on April 23, which describes an initiative known as "Project Destiny." The dreamily named plan involves a 45-day review of the insurance issue's various units, which is then meant to generate a longer-term road map for the future.

While the internal memo explains Project Destiny as an "effort to redefine the future of most of the major businesses within AIG," Chief Restructuring Officer Paula Reynolds described the initiative in terms indicating that all AIG needs to regain its joie de vivre is a torrid island affair with a younger man. "Simply put, we are going to get our groove back," she enthused.

Alfred P. Sloan, the legendary CEO of General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) from 1934 to 1956, envisioned GM as a company that would offer a car for every income level, thus keeping customers in the GM fold as they climbed the ladder of American success from their entry level jobs to their peak earnings years. Starting out, a customer would buy a Chevrolet and then keep buying bigger intermediate cars -- e.g., Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks -- before reaching the summit -- Cadillac.

The new GM won't sell you those intermediate cars -- it will get you at the bottom (Chevrolet) and the top (Cadillac) and offer you nothing in between. Through something called a Section 363 bankruptcy, GM will sell its most valuable assets -- Chevy and Cadillac -- to a new government-funded company. The rest of GM -- Buick, Pontiac, Hummer, etc. -- will be left in the old GM. The proceeds from selling the good assets will help pay claims like GM's $27 billion in unsecured debt and its $20 billion in union pension liabilities.

One of the latest ideas being kicked around by Congress and the White House is naming an "auto czar" to oversee how the taxpayer's money is spent on the bailout of The Big Three.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "Negotiations over a government rescue of the Big Three automakers slowed Saturday as Congress and the White House debated over the role of an 'auto czar' who would oversee a restructuring of the industry."

Which restructuring is that? The one where GM (NYSE: GM) and Chrysler go through a prepackaged bankruptcy to cut union costs and debt? Or, the one where the Detroit firms get $34 million to retool their factories and negotiate with labor and creditors? Or, the one where GM and Chrysler merge?

The issues that are the most pressing for the American automotive industry are not how to supervise a restructuring. They are what form a restructuring will take, how much money will be needed, and what will happen if, in six months, the first bailout is financially inadequate.

At this point the auto czar really has nothing to be in charge of.

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

General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) should get government help with financing in Chapter 11 once it restructures in a pre-packaged bankruptcy. A restructuring would jettison GM's management team, cut labor costs, close unprofitable dealerships, and toss overboard GM's money-losing product lines. Taxpayers should not pay the salaries of people who can't operate a profitable business.

Here are six steps of a proposed restructuring that could save $16 billion a year:

• Allow GM to merge with Chrysler -- but only if Cerberus, which owns Chrysler, sees its equity wiped out -- to save $7 billion in annual costs;
• Dump unprofitable brands -- Cadillac, Chevy and Buick (it is popular in China) would be the surviving GM brands. All the others -- Saturn, Pontiac, GMC and Saab -- would be sold to interested buyers or shut down. This would save $5 billion a year;
• Close related dealerships -- this would cut $4 billion annually;

Shares of Swiss pharmaceutical maker Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS) are lower in early morning trading after the company announced its fourth-quarter net profit fell by 45%, hurt by a restructuring charge and higher generic competition.

Novartis said net profit attributable to shareholders slipped to $904 million from $1.65 billion in the fourth quarter. Net profit from continuing operations also plunged 42% to $931 million from $1.6 billion in the same period of last year. The results were below analysts' average estimate of a profit of $1.33 billion. Included in the company's figures was a $444 million charge related to Novartis's cost-savings program pressured earnings.

However, Novartis results weren't really a surprise, as analysts had anticipated the fourth quarter would be weak for the drugmaker after the company announced in December that it would cut 2,500 jobs worldwide. Its decision came on worries over ongoing challenges from generics producers. Novartis declared that the job cuts brought the $444 million fourth-quarter charge, but it expects to save $1.6 billion in costs each year until 2010.

As part of its ongoing restructuring program, beauty products giant Avon Products (NYSE: AVP) announced plans to reduce its workforce by 2,400 jobs. The company's restructuring plan was first announced in 2005, and the company is now looking at completing the restructuring in 2011.

Previously, the restructuring was supposed to run the company $500 million, but now the estimates are pointing to a total cost closer to $530 million. Once completed, the company plans to save itself approximately $430 million annually. This is substantially higher than the original $300 million annual savings the company had initially anticipated.

While the company has been moving through its restructuring over the past two years, the stock has been trading pretty strong. Since the end of 2005, the stock has moved from $27.34 to its current price of $39.00, picking up 42.6% for its shareholders.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) will be laying off about 250 technical support employees at its Nashville, Tennessee customer service location as part of a broad cost restructuring movement that was announced this past May. The job cuts will be effective immediately according to the company, with affected employees being offered sales positions, with others receiving severance packages and outplacement assistance. That's good -- it's hard to think of a technical support specialist being a good salesperson. Those two mindsets rarely co-exist in the same brain.

Dell has been busy all summer restructuring support operations to give the company a leaner cost structure. At the same time, it's revamping much of its consumer product line to better compete with rival Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) and entering the retail market (in what I consider to be a too hurried fashion). However, that's not stopping Dell from having its boring PC boxes loaded up on pallets at your local Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) location.

Dell's 81,000 global employees will see their ranks cut by about 10% based on what the company announced in May, so there are more cuts coming. Right now, Dell officials are not saying how far along the company is in the move to lay off over 8,000 employees globally or what the numbers are for each business unit within the computer manufacturer. The Tennessee support location has grown from about 200 employees to more than 4,000 since opening in 1999, but business needs have changed quite a bit since then.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) implied volatility elevated at 40. YHOO is recently down 37 cents to $22.95. YHOO overall option implied volatility of 40 is above its 26-week average of 35 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) implied volatility elevated at 40. MSFT is recently down 19 cents to $27.91. MSFT overall option implied volatility of 40 is above its 26-week average of 23 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) implied volatility elevated at 34 after restructuring. AMGN is recently down $1.57 to $49.02. Goldman Sachs says: "Sales and costs in line. Maintain estimate and intrinsic value of $45." AMGN September option implied volatility of 34 is above its 26-week average of 26 according to Track Data, indicating larger risks.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) implied volatility elevated at 34. CSCO is recently up 9 cents to $30.01. CSCO will be holding an analyst meeting on September 5 in San Jose. Jeffreies has a Buy rating on CSCO. CSCO September option implied volatility of 34 is above its 26-week average of 28 according to Track Data, suggesting slightly larger risk.

Volatility Index S&P 500 Options-VIX up 2.68 to 33.35.

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

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), in an effort to prepare for the encroachment of generic competition and improve the health of its bottom line, said today that it would reduce its workforce by 3-4%. The move will affect roughly 3,615 to 4,820 jobs and will result in a restructuring cost of $550 million to $750 million, which will be swallowed in the second half of 2007.

The majority of the cuts will come from the pharmaceuticals segment, as it suffers a number of patent expirations in the coming years. The restructuring move is expected to result in pretax, annual cost savings of $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion in 2008.

The company also took this opportunity to reiterate its 2007 earnings forecast. Before items, the pharmaceutical heavyweight expects to earn between $4.02 and $4.07 per share, compared with year-ago profit of $3.76 per share. In other news, JNJ says it plans to consolidate some of its pharmaceutical operations as it funnels money into its drug pipeline. From 2008 to 2010, JNJ hopes to file applications for regulatory approval of 7 to 10 new compounds.

So far today, Wall Street is reacting positively to this news, sending the stock almost 2% higher. The stock has now edged above its 10-day moving average for the first time in two weeks, though it remains below its descending 10-week trendline.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

The Dow Jones is up over 11% for the year so far and the euphoria on Wall Street has certainly hit Main Street. The one sector that has not participated in this rally is major U.S., large-cap banks. The stock performance of the major six banks has been as low as down 10% to flat -- in other words lousy. The six major banks are Citigroup (NYSE: C), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), Wachovia (NYSE: WB) and Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) and JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM). So is time to start nibbling away at these stocks?

The central issue is the state of the subprime mortgage market. All of these banks are major mortgage players in the United States, from coast to coast. As the earnings season was approaching with first quarter results, many thought the answers would be evident and that the issue would be a memory. All six reported very good, solid first quarter results, and reserve requirements were raised for the year to absorb defaulted mortgages. Washington Mutual explained that they were aggressively working with the subprime customers to refinance their loans before the problems got worse. Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Wachovia followed suit.

The earnings were strong for the first quarter and guidance for the calender year 2007 stayed the same, no lowering of forward expectations. Dividends are absolutely solid in terms of earnings/dividend coverage, and the yields are mouth-watering. The yields on the big six range from 3.2% to 5.2%.

The stocks have been flat to down as the mortgage issue is not yet totally resolved. The housing market is still a troubling aspect of the economy, with no real relief in sight until at least 2008. That factor has kept these stocks depressed. But remember, you want to buy when no one else is.

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) opened at $29.14. So far today the stock has hit a low of $28.79 and a high of $29.19. As of 10:55, NOK is trading at $28.81, up $0.20 (0.7%).

The stock has been rising steadily over the last six months, hitting a new 52-week high today after announcing a corporate restructuring plan. Recent technical indicators for NOK have been bullish but deteriorating slightly, while S&P gives the stock a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold rating.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an October bull-put credit spread below the $25 range. NOK hasn't been below $25 since April and has shown support around $28 recently. This trade could be risky if recent bullish run turns out to be a fake-out, but even if that happens, this position could be protected by the three levels of support the stock found just between $25 and $28 over the past two months.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer. DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls a position in NOK.

Although short selling -- the practice of selling borrowed shares with the hope of repaying the loan by buying back the shares at a lower price -- goes against the American belief that stocks always go up, I have long been fascinated with it. Short Stories discusses what works, what doesn't, and what some of the leading lights in shorting stocks think about its opportunities and threats. I describe possible short trades and I seek your comments and questions for story ideas. I don't offer any investment advice and I don't trade on any of the posts I write.

I first suggested selling short Bally Total Fitness, Inc. (Pink Sheets: BFTH) last November at $2.59. Why? Bally owed $512 million this year, was spending $7 million more cash than it was taking in, and I doubted that banks would lend it enough money to stay afloat. Back then my biggest concern for the short position was that hedge fund billionaire Stevie Cohen had placed a big bullish bet on Bally -- his SAC Capital Advisors owned 6.9% of the company. I figured he must know something that I didn't.

But on Thursday, Cohen's bet went bust as Bally filed for bankruptcy. According to its filing, "Under the prepackaged restructuring plan, there will be a reduction in the principal outstanding on Bally's existing senior subordinated notes by $150 million by exchanging all existing senior subordinated notes for a new class of notes, common equity and the right to participate in a $77.5 million rights offering."

SAC's wipe out provides a useful insight for investors -- even the most talented players make mistakes. It's just that they make more good calls than bad ones. Meanwhile, those who followed my suggestion to short Bally could cover their position on Monday at $0.31 a share, pocketing a 736% return -- not bad for eight month's work.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in Bally.