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Being 34% owned by the U.S. government, Citigroup's (NYSE: C) destiny is somewhat murky. Yet, to pay off the loans, this massive financial institution must shrink. To this end, Citigroup has filed a public offering for its Primerica Financial Services. According to the prospectus, the deal is expected to raise $100 million, but it's likely the amount will be much larger.

Primerica certainly has an interesting history. Back in 1977, an aggressive financial service executive, Arthur Williams, started the company, with the focus on providing term insurance to consumers as well as mutual fund products. However, he had an interesting twist on distribution: he used network marketing. Basically, a Primerica agent would get incentives by recruiting new agents. As a result, the company's growth exploded.

John Reed, the financier who helped engineer the creation of Citigroup (NYSE: C) has a message for investors and taxpayers who are none-to-pleased with his track record of value destruction: My bad!

In an interview with Bloomberg, Reed said "I'm sorry. These are people I love and care about. You could imagine emotionally it's not easy to see what's happened."

He also advocated splitting Citigroup and similar banks into smaller parts to lessen their ability to torpedo the broader economy.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer wonders whether the big selloff was caused by anxious managers locking in profits.

What happens if it is was mostly lock-in action? What if the big themes that everyone so feared weren't so big, and that the selloff -- so ugly, with so much damage -- was just technical and remains that way?

Besides my oft-repeated statement that I don't expect a pullback to exceed 7%, I think this market didn't make a lot of sense last week.

Here were the big themes: dollar getting stronger, causing a decline in minerals and resources; industrials faltering; recession stocks roaring back.

Today was mired by awful spending and income data as many are actually now not believing that high GDP figure from yesterday. Earnings were virtually the same as earnings tend to beat estimates but because of cost cutting.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,710.54 -252.04 (-2.53%)
S&P 500 1,036.01 -30.10 (-2.82%)
Nasdaq 2,045.11 -52.44 (-2.50%)

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What has Blackstone (NYSE: BX) been doing with all those theme parks it's been buying? Well, the answer is becoming a bit clearer now. The private equity firm is getting ready to take theme park operator Merlin Entertainments public early next year.

Several investment banks have already been called to advise on the transaction, including Citigroup (NYSE: C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB), UBS (NYSE: UBS), and Nomura (NYSE: NMR). If all goes as planned, the deal could be good for $3.33 billion.

Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) higher Q3 earnings topped expectations but revenue was in line.
• Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) posted better-than-expected Q3 results, but shares sold off.
• Allegheny Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ATI) was downgraded on concerns about its Q4 guidance.
• Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) shares fell after it posted a deeper-than-expected quarterly loss.
• Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) fell victim to profit taking despite reporting better-than-expected earnings.
• CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) better-than-expected Q3 earnings sent shares higher, despite a decline in revenue.

I don't think anyone could have had a positive reaction to Bank of America's (NYSE: BAC) third-quarter report, which was released on Friday. According to Bloomberg, management lost $1 billion in the past three months. Big ouch on that one. The financial institution bled 26 cents per diluted share. No earnings beat here, either. Wall Street sent shares down 4.6% by the end of yesterday's trading session.

The year-ago period was a happier time. Back then, Bank of America was rolling in the dough, posting a profit of 15 cents per share. What a difference 12 months makes. Looking at the nine-month record perhaps gives a small amount of comfort to shareholders. The company made 39 cents per diluted share. Of course, that doesn't sit too well next to the $1.09 per diluted share booked in the comparable period. But at least it's not a loss, know what I mean?

The Street.com's Jim Cramer says that reasonable people who believe the market is a reasonable place to make money are getting back in.

People are getting back to even. In the last 72 hours I have spoken to about 500 investors -- or at least 500 book buyers! -- many of whom have told me they recently either got back to even, having dodged the big decline or gotten in near the bottom, or are actually up nicely because they saw the opportunity in March and rode it back up.

I always figure when you meet people it is strictly anecdotal. But when you meet 500 of them it crosses over into empirical. Here's what I saw of this particular cross-section.

Citigroup (NYSE: C) closed at $5.00. C is expected to report Q3 EPS today. C options were active on October 14th with 1,117,189 contracts trading. C October 5 straddle is priced at 33c, November 5 straddle is at 72c. C November option implied volatility is at 56, December is at 56, January is at 59; verses its 26-week average of 79, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement after EPS.

UAL Corp (NASDAQ: UAUA) closed at $7.82. UAUA is scheduled to report Q3 EPS on October 20. UAUA November option implied volatility is at 80, December is at 84; below its 26-week average of 111, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement.

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

U.S. stock futures were mixed to lower Thursday morning, trading in a tight range as investors look beyond Dow 10,000. Another wave of earnings is due out today, including from financial giants Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS). Also, a slew of economic releases will be reported, including inflation and two key regional indexes. [[Update 8:15 a.m.: Futures turned lower after Goldman's results.]]

Wall Street rallied Wednesday on earnings optimism, following upbeat profit reports from Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM). It was enough to lift the Dow industrials to its first close above 10,000 in a year. But some, like my colleague Dan Burrows, think it won't last.

Tuesday morning greeted us with earnings from banking behemoth JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM). The company said it earned $3.59 billion and that it nearly doubled the amount of money it saved for loan losses in the third quarter.

Breaking the results down into per-share earnings, JPM trounced the consensus estimate. The bank earned 82 cents per share, nearly double the expected 49 cents per share. Quarterly revenue increased to $26.62 billion from last year's same-quarter revenue of $14.74 billion.

Analyst upgrades:

• Credit Suisse upgraded Stancorp (NYSE: SFG) to Outperform from Neutral citing relative valuation and EPS visibility.
• Jefferies upgraded Cypress Semiconductor (NYSE: CY) to Hold from Underperform after its channel checks indicated the company's capacitive touch screen solution has design traction. The firm raised its target on shares to $10 from $7.50.
• FBR Capital upgraded Pacific Sunwear (NASDAQ: PSUN) to Outperform from Market Perform to reflect improving store channel checks, the company's brand focus and controlled inventory, as well as the firm's belief that guidance could be conservative. FBR raised its target on shares to $9 from $6.
• Advanced Micro (NYSE: AMD) was upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at JMP Securities.
• Lam Research (NASDAQ: LRCX) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays.
• Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG) was upgraded to Buy from Hold at RBS.

Who does our Treasury Secretary speak to most of the time? Yup. You guessed it. It's the big three bankers.

Who are they? First, we have Lloyd Blankenstein, CEO of Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE GS). Then we have Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Company (NYSE JPM) and then CEO, Vikam Pandt of Citigroup Inc. (NYSE C).

You are probably also wondering how do we know this? The Associated Press did a review of Geithner's calendar under the Freedom of Information Act.

In his first seven months on the job, Geithner made at least 80 contacts with the "big three." Not only that Geithner jumps to the phone when they call. They are the dominant players on Wall Street who can move markets and even economies.

Starting your own business? Need some extra space for your needlepoint habit? You're in luck ... office space comes cheap these days. In fact, rent for office space is sliding lower at the fastest rate since 1995. In the third quarter, office rents dropped 8.5% on a year-over-year basis.

Falling prices typically go hand in hand with falling demand and in fact, vacancies are on the rise as layoffs increase. New York-based real-estate research firm Reis says the office vacancy rate has hit a five-year high of 16.5%. Last quarter, tenants returned 19.6 million square feet of commercial rental space to their landlords.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the faction supporting Greg Curl as new CEO doesn't realize he would be a step backward for the bank.

From day one my money's been on Brian Moynihan to run Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take). But the drumbeat grows louder from Charlotte, N.C., that Greg Curl's the man.

Why?

I think the reasoning is simple. Bank of America is like the Balkans. It's got all of these little countries within it and they all want hegemony. Nation's Bank. Bank of America. Fleet Bank. Ken Lewis always reminded me of Josip Broz Tito, holding together Yugoslavia as long as he was alive, although knowing Tito the way I did, he would never have overpaid for so many painful acquisitions.