The big market news of the day is that Citigroup, Inc. (C) will not have Uncle Sam for a shareholder for much longer. The news that the Treasury would sell the taxpayer interest in the bank pushed shares down 3% to $4.18.

For the most part the market traded sideways. Ford Motor Company (F) dropped slightly on its announcement that it March sales were be nothing extraordinary. Shareholders expected the month to be a home run. Apple, Inc. (AAPL) shares hit a new 52-week high of $233.87 as excitement grew about its iPad launch

Today's unofficial closing bell numbers:

Dow 10,895.86 +45.50 (0.42%)
S&P 500 1,173.22 +6.63 (0.57%)
Nasdaq 2,404.36 +9.23 (0.39%)

American International Group (AIG) has gone back to the feds. The insurer pulled another $2.2 billion from its Treasury Department facility to support the property-casualty business units that will comprise the restructured company. AIG used the cash from Treasury to redeem some securities held by its insurance subsidiaries to increase liquidity and address rating agency considerations.

According to David Havens, managing director of credit trading at Nomura Securities (NMR), "AIG still needs to be cognizant of where the rating agencies stand on their solvency." He adds, in Bloomberg News, that the funds may have been sought after the company got "feedback from the rating agencies that the regulatory capital within the operating companies doesn't muster up."

Hartford Financial Services Group (HIG) is getting ready to repay its $3.4 billion in TARP money to the feds. The insurance company is using money raised from debt and equity offerings to settle its score with the American taxpayer.

Hartford is going to issue $1.45 billion in common stock and $500 million in mandatory convertible preferred stock presented by depository shares. The debt offering will entail senior notes of $425 million. Hartford will pre-fund the repurchase of senior debt that matures in 2010 and 2011 with the issuance of an additional $675 million in senior notes.

Regional banking issue Comerica (CMA) is in focus today, after announcing last night that it will sell $800 million in common stock in order to repay its debt to the U.S. government. Under the terms of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Comerica owes Uncle Sam about $2.25 billion. At this point, the Dallas-based bank is among the few remaining financial institutions yet to repay its TARP debt.

This morning, Comerica priced its common stock offering at $35 per share, representing a discount to Monday's close at $36.29. The shares have quickly backpedaled as a result, slipping below recent support at their 10-day and 20-day moving averages.

Elkhart, Indiana; a favorite stomping ground of President Obama - where the government's economic stimulus plan was to be on full display, helping the town rise like a phoenix from the ashes. According to this New York Times article, Elkhart has gained jobs in the past nine months, but the federal support for housing is failing. More than one in 10 mortgages in Elkhart is "seriously behind" on payments and the median sale price of homes is back to where it was 10 years ago. One of the main goals of the federal support program was to keep prices from falling and mortgage delinquencies from rising, and how is that working out? Elkhart residents note that the only reason their real estate market works at all is because of the emergency federal funding. In fact, in the past 18 months, the FHA upped loans in Elkhart by 40% while defaults increased 174% --- not a good ratio.

Paul Volcker was chairman of the Federal Reserve during the 1970s and 1980s when OPEC raised the price of oil from about $2.50 per barrel to $30.00 per barrel overnight. Since oil is integral to all parts of our economy, we saw the worst inflation ever. Volcker had to raise interest rates to near 20% to break the back of the inflation. He is no shrinking violet.

Now, again, he is center stage. His latest proposal, called the "Volcker Rule," calls for banks that do proprietary trading to give up their banking status. Goldman Sachs (GS) and other financial institutions acquired bank status during the financial crisis. One condition for receiving TARP money was that institutions had to be a bank. The Treasury department allowed them to become banks, and they did receive TARP money.

Have you heard the news? Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is so deliriously happy about the way economic recovery is progressing that he's already making plans to chill the entire party. That's right, the Fed Chairman is already getting all shaky and whiny about inflation. Who could blame him? It's what he does best.

Now here's the rub: Ben Bernanke is plotting his quicksand parade stopper at the very same time that President Obama is calling for sweeping efforts to break loose credit markets for small business expansion and for employers to hire more workers.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Emilio Botin, Chairman of Banco Santander (STD) of Madrid, exchanged emails on how best to collaborate in the event of forthcoming bank failures. But the key here is that the exchange happened in June of 2008.

Afterward, Dimon and Botin met to discuss bidding on failing U.S. banks. Keep in mind that this was before the financial crisis gathered steam in fall of 2009. And keep in mind that this was before the TARP monies were provided to the big banks. This was before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual (which JPMorgan bought), Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and so on.

The Obama administration has a full-press program underway to reduce unemployment. One of their proposals is to provide $30 billion to community banks to spur lending to small businesses. The money would be transferred from TARP.

The big banks have been reluctant to lend to small businesses, instead preferring to use their money for in-house trading. This proposal from the Obama administration is viewed as an end-run around big banks.

San Francisco-based financial services provider Wells Fargo & Company (WFC), which claims $1.2 trillion in assets, is scheduled to discuss its fourth-quarter 2009 financial results in a conference call Wednesday, Jan. 20, at 10:30 AM (ET). A live webcast of the call will be available at the company's website.

During the three months that ended in December, Wells Fargo reported its third consecutive quarter of record earnings, completed its TARP repayment and declared a quarterly dividend. But analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are looking for Wells Fargo to have shrunk its loss to $0.01 per share from a year-ago loss of $0.79 per share. Fourth-quarter revenue is expected to have grown 123.6% from a year ago to $21.9 billion.

The Obama administration is announcing plans to impose a "financial crisis responsibility fee" on large banks that received TARP money.

The tax will seek to raise $90 billion to cover expected losses on TARP, and will be levied only on large institutions: about 50 companies will have to pay it.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that President Obama will propose a tax on large banks and other companies based on their exposure to risk. This new tax will be called a "financial crisis responsibility fee" and will require 50 banks, insurance companies, and large broker-dealers to pay the federal government roughly $90 billion over the next 10 years.

According to the report, roughly 35 of the 50 impacted firms will be U.S. based, while the remaining will be U.S. subsidiaries of foreign financial firms. Other large firms that benefited from debt guarantees will also be included, even banks that have repaid their TARP bailout money.

The Federal Reserve picked up a $52.1 billion profit last year, a record for the organization. The result is due largely to its 2009 bailout efforts. Of the profit generated, $46.1 billion will be handed over to the Treasury Department -- the largest profit payment made since records began back in 1914. The previous record was $34.6 billion, in 2007. Last year, the Fed turned $31.7 billion over to the Treasury Department.

According to the Associated Press, the profit didn't come from the $700 billion lent to financial institutions -- and then to auto companies like General Motors. Rather, it was the result of earnings from the securities it had in its portfolio last year. Several investment programs were launched last year to help kickstart the U.S. economy and drive down rates on mortgages and consumer debt. Through the programs, the Fed bought $300 billion in government debt, and under another, it's on a trajectory to buy $1.25 trillion in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae mortgage securities.

Let's chalk up one of the first casualties to the salary limits imposed by the government. American International Group's (AIG) vice chairwoman for legal, human resources, corporate affairs and corporate communications, Anastasia Kelly resigned Wednesday for "good reason."

And what was that good reason? It sure seems that it's the pay restrictions levied by Kenneth R. Feinberg, the pay czar assigned by the Obama administration to monitor pay at companies that received taxpayer bailouts. At AIG, the 26th through the 100th highest-paid employees (along with the other firms) have had their cash salaries limited to $500,000.

Jobless claims ticked back up yet again, and the global stock markets were all weak ahead of the opening bell in New York this morning. Throw in a stronger dollar and weak commodity prices, and you had almost no real chance for a sizable recovery into positive territory when you consider that the DJIA and S&P 500 are so close to 2009 highs.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,308.26 -132.86 (-1.27%)
S&P 500 1,096.12 -13.06 (-1.18%)
Nasdaq 2,180.05 -26.86 (-1.22%)

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