“Over the last 30 years, an American has appeared on the cover of the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 15 different years,” the Bespoken write. “The average performance of the S&P 500 during those 15 years is a gain of 13.9% with 13 positive years (87%). Of the fifteen years where no American appeared on the cover, the S&P 500 has averaged a gain of only 7.2% with 11 positive years (73%).”

The shorts should hope for Spanish speaking cover models. Issues featuring models from Argentina, Mexico and Spain all saw losses for the S&P 500 that year.

(Oh, and click image for a bigger version of the cover.)

2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue: It's Research! [Think Big via Eddy]

The above is a clip from Fox Business on which clothing trends don't work at the office. I disagree with all of them.

#1 FBN SAYS: Don't Overaccessorize because too much jewelry can make too much noise and just make you look plain silly. Wrong because: too few investment bankers dress like Mr. T these days. You see it at the hedge funds, because they're a little more, you know, out there, but not enough at the banks. Also, it's nice to announce yourself via jingle jangle instead of the vanilla, "Here I come."

#2 FBN SAYS: Don't Wear Leggings. Don't really say why, just that you should "go old-fashioned with tights or hose." I beg to differ but not for the reason you would think, which is that leggings are stupid, but because, as stated previously, I fully believe the fastest way to get to the top is no pants at all. If it's good enough for Leon Cooperman, it's good enough for you.

#3 FBN SAYS: Be Judicious About Your Shoes "Comfort is key, heels that are too high make you look like a skank blah blah blah." I call bullshit because: Hedge funds (and other financial institutions but for this particular example, HFs) are a dog eat dog world. It is a well known fact that Adam Sender first made a name not by savvy stockpicking, but by wearing KISS boots in the office, and spitting blood. Not only was it kick ass, it also added 13 inches to his height, putting him just under 6 feet.

Earlier: Getting You Promoted, One Pair Of Assless Chaps At A Time (Provided You Work For Larry Robbins)

“Credit ratings are relative to the type of credit,” a credit rating official tells DealBreaker. “Different types of products have different inherent risks, and the labels reflect payment expectations within those categories.”

The ratings agencies have all but admitted, however, that by using the same labels for products carrying different levels of risk they may have left themselves open to the critique they now face. This is why they have proposed reforms such as explicit warnings and using different systems of rankings for different types of products.

By and large, Wall Street does not appear to have been fooled by the fact that CDOs and corporate bonds may have both been called AAA. The CDO market typically offered higher yields for triple A paper than the corporate debt market, implying that investors understood the risk profile was different. It wasn’t only the nature of the credit product that was heterogeneous. The pricing was as well.

--The Fox Business commercial. Remember? We found out that it only costs $250-$900 to buy a 30-second spot on FBN, depending on when it airs, and delineated tasks to the group. I repeat: You: Make a video and send it to us. We: Pick the best and our publisher will send it to Fox's ad sales team. They: Either a) air it, and earn you a piece of quasi-immortality along such leading FBN lights as Fat Boy Cavuto; or b) shitcan it, and we'll reprint a transcript and audio clip of how Fox, who would blow a goat for a few extra shekels, all of a sudden got all 'integrity' on us. I love the idea of sending the ValueStockTips guy, and it may very well come to that but seriously, show me what you can do.

-- Goldman Sachs is still firing people. So sayeth:

A friend and associate in equity derivatives got let go from GS this morning. He's on his way to Maiden Lane to get his severance package. The reason? "Re-organization"

The source said the last thing he saw was a few schmattas throwing the guy in a car with Eddie Dane, who told him, "Everyone's so goddamn smart. Well, we'll go to Maiden Lane. And we'll see who's smart."

With those words the world learned yesterday that Credit Suisse had sold off its exposure to three closely syndicated loan deals—the buyouts of Harrah’s, Intelsat and Alliance Data Systems. Many in the syndicated loan business were taken aback that Credit Suisse had jumped the gun and sold off its exposure without consulting other syndicate members. Although the details are unclear, the effect today seems to be that others are following suit, bringing to market debt in a way to some say resembles a panic.

"There's a real panicky feel out there. It's become a game of hot potato," one syndicated loan market veteran told DealBreaker.

There's a lot of sensitivity around this issue, and many market players are declining to comment on it at all. There's talk that Clear Channel loans commitments may be in trouble. We're still digging.

Update: "80 is the new 90" for leveraged loans, FT Alphaville reports. This is putting pressure on CLOs, which are falling through the floor. Banks hold a lot of CLOs, especially the triple A CLOs they thought were the safest bets but may turn out to be worth far less than anticipated. They haven't disclosed much of these positions, according to FT Alphaville, because they were fully hedged. But here's the catch--they were fully hedged with swaps from bond insurers.

"Thus as monolines totter, banks are having to writedown the value of the CDS, and so add CLO exposures onto their balance sheets. Just at the wrong time - as CLOs’ paper becomes more distressed. While losses won’t be realised as severely as with RMBS, rating downgrades to CLO paper may well require banks to stump up extra regulatory capital at a time when they can least afford to," FT Alphaville reports.

Wall Street is notoriously a place populated by masters of the universe, big swinging dicks, movers and shakers, ballers and Men Who Make The World Work. Perhaps even more famously, it’s populated by people who believe that they can be fairly described in these terms, folks with egos scaled to match their bank accounts. It’s hardly uncharitable to notice that quite a few of these people can also be fairly described as “assholes.”

In fact, the list of Wall Street assholes is too long for anyone. We need to narrow it down to a list of the top ranks, the biggest assholes on Wall Street. We’re busy evaluating candidates here in the DealBreaker HQ Bunker, putting them up on cork boards like the FBI assembling a mafia management structure. But one of the glories of these here internets is that the communication goes both ways—from the Bunker to the Street, and from the Street to the Bunker. Starting this morning we’re taking your nominations for the first official DealBreaker list of the Biggest Assholes On Wall Street.

Send your nominations to tips@Dealbreaker.com or nominate someone in the comments section. A helpful explanation for why the nominee deserves to be ranked among Wall Street’s Bigs is appreciated. Extra credit will be award for first hand accounts of assholery.

"If you have health care and you're not happy with it -- like me who has employer provided health care, but I'm not happy with it -- and if you are one of the 100 million who are uninsured at some point throughout the year... you'll be able to buy into a Congressional health plan," Chelsea Clinton said, according to the Politico blog.

Ouch. You employ the daughter of a former and a prospective president, and this is the thanks you get?

Note to Avenue Capital [Politico]

There is strong evidence that suggests investors in many CDOs were skeptical that a AAA CDO paper had the same risk premiums of more traditional investment grade debt. Investment-grade CDOs typically offered higher yields than similarly rated corporate bonds. But yield and price are inversely related, so this is just a way of saying that they were priced below similarly rate corporate bonds. The CDOs were rated triple A and structured to have similar payouts but priced lower.

Basic financial theory should tell anyone that this is too good to be true. Excess reward should quickly be priced away, returning profits to average levels. If higher yields continue, there is clearly some kind of discounting going on.

You can think of the higher yield for CDOs as resulting from the assignment by investors of a ratings agency error discount. The market understood that triple A did not mean triple A when it came to CDOs, and it discounted the CDOs for this errant marking.

This is not to say that the high ratings for CDOs weren’t a charade. But clearly the investors in CDOs weren’t fooled.

But now, thinking about it, I wonder, am I unnecessarily harsh on Steve Cohen? One could theorize that with these posts I'm doing the whole "pull the BG's ponytail on the playground," but that doesn't really work, for several but one notable reason in particular.

What the leading light complaining to me doesn't realize is something the Big Guy surely does and appreciates: With a few exceptions (Timmay, Blarney, Alexey), being mocked by Ms Levin is one of the great trappings of big-swinging-dickdom that very few ever achieve (Crab Hands, Fatty, ValueStockTipguy). I know nothing about Wall Street, so if I have heard of you, you're big. But Stef-Boy (people think he is called Stevie, but his true friends know otherwise) won't come out of his hermetically-sealed full-body condom to clarify this matter on my behalf so I'll leave it to all of you to decide by poll. Am I too mean to him? If yes, you had better come up with somebody else for me to mock or I will find you and make you my next bitch. If no, congratulations, you answered correctly.

(Eff the Vizu poll. And not because it doesn't let you use curse words -- though you know that grinds my gears -- but because I want a forum. The Internet is a collaborative medium; as far as I can tell I'm the only one doing the work here. Except this guy:)

“He’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” a source tells DealBreaker. Others dispute this characterization however, saying that Fleming shows no signs of anything like "a nervous breakdown."

When John Thain took over as chief executive of the bank, one of the very first changes he announced was a flatter management structure. More executives now report directly to Thain, in effect circumventing Fleming’s office. Under Stan O’Neal, the risk management executives did not report directly to the top—a situation which has been blamed for some of the excesses that lead to enormous losses over the last several months.

Fleming, who also serves as chief operating officer and oversees the investment banking business, is said to have dug in as president, and told others that he will not accept a co-presidency with others at the firm. This is seen by many as resisting the flatter structure Thain is putting in place, and may be alienating him from others at Merrill. Perhaps more important, Thain is thought to be chagrined by Fleming’s stance.

“Fleming could have been a team player. He’s still got the investment bank under him,” said one person with knowledge of the dynamics within the firm. “But he went the other way. He saw moving back to being just head of investment banking as a demotion.”

Some feel that the flatter management structure has effectively demoted Fleming already. With the new head of risk management, the top spokesperson, their general counsel, the chief financial officer and the brokerage head of the brokerage arm, among others, reporting directly to Thain, the office of the bank’s president may be superfluous. Last week, both Market Watch and Bloomberg referred to Fleming as the “chief operating officer” of Merrill without mentioning his role as president.

Fleming remains respected as an investment banker at the firm, even by those who are surprised at his alleged inflexibility. He remains youthful, plain-spoken and full of energy, according to people at Merrill Lynch. He is known as a perfectionist and an investment banking star—which is all the more reason his continued grasping to the title of sole president has some feeling “mystified.”

Merrill Lynch would not comment on this story.

This morning Buffett revealed on CNBC's Squawk Box that he's extended an offer to tottering bond insurers to provide re-insurance of on up to $800 billion in municipal bonds. The offer does not, of course, cover the more complicated derivative instruments that have been the source of so much profit and trouble for the bond insurers.

Speaking on the phone with CNBC's Ancient Billionaire Correspondent Becky Quick, the Oracle of Omaha, said Berkshire Hathaway a week ago made the reinsurance offer to bond insurers Ambac, MBIA and FGIC. One firm has already rejected his offer to insure the safest part of their business. We're guessing that's MBIA, which is newly flush with Warburg Pincus cash. The other two haven't returned his calls are still considering the offer. The offer is ticking: he gave them 30 days to respond.

Buffett's plan would likely insure ensure that the covered municipal bonds would not be affected by a downgrade in the ratings of MBIA, Ambac or FGIC. According to Buffett, the trouble with the bond insurers is producing strange price discrepancies, with some uninsured bonds trading above insured bonds. "Essentially, they've already lost their triple A. They're trading as if they had lost it," Buffett said. "In the market the triple A has gone away a long time ago."

Shares of these insurance companies will initially spike on the news, although by satisfying some of the concerns of government insurance regulators it could wind up contributing to the demise of a industry-wide bailout plan. In short, this "bailout" could spell the end of the insurers if the CDO situation gets bad enough. Buffett noted that the CDO exposure for these companies would not be covered, adding that "we can't figure it out" when asked about the extent of that exposure. He described the "natural course" of the CDO insurance as "disastrous."

Perhaps still smarting from DealBreaker's "Will Warren Buffett Go To Hell?" feature, the Oracle stressed that he would "not be presenting this deal to Saint Peter" when he shows at the pearly gates. "We're doing this to make money," Buffett said. "I did not dream this up in one of my pro-bono moments."

We thought we should let you know about this development since the odds are your attention was riveted on Fox Business. While Becks was talking to Buffett, FBN's "Money for Breakfast" co-anchor Peter Barnes wasinterviewing an M&M in a Split-Screen from Candyland. Candyland! Who wants a gumdrop!

At the heart of the critiques, mockery and investigation is the sense that ratings agencies damaged the market by assigning investment grade ratings to securities that are now considered to assigned far lower values by much of the market. Many regard certain types of CDOs that were highly rated by the agencies as toxic or simply worthless. In the moveable feast of blame, the ratings agencies are being made to eat some humble pie and admit they made errors.

But how much of the damage to CDO investors is really the fault of the ratings agencies? Were sophisticated investors—banks, hedge funds and other institutional investors—really fooled into over-investing in these risky credit products by the high ratings assigned by the agencies? There’s good reason to be skeptical of some of the criticism coming from banks and regulators.

We explain why after the jump.

Feds to Unveil New Mortgage-Help Plan (AP)
A group of banks and the federal government are expected to announce today some sort of aid plan to troubled homeowners that will allow them to try sticking it out in their homes and forestall foreclosure by 30 days. Our first assumption, of course, is that it's just a band aid over a gaping gash. But we also wonder how the banks can offer this to homeowners when the banks are rarely holding the mortgages. Presumably, either the banks or the federal government will be making that extra month's payment themselves to the mortgage holder, though we don't really know how that works.

Dow gurus may wish for one last puff (Tribune)
A long time ago (like eight years ago), we were watching an interview with Maria Bartiromo (she was the interviewee) and she was talking about the mania for markets in the public consciousness at the time. So she related some anecdote about getting into a cab and the driver immediately asked her where the DJIA was it. The story was meant to convey the fact that a) even cabbies know what the Dow Jones is and b) even they can recognize Maria Bartiromo. But what struck us was c) that the driver was mainly interested in the Dow, as opposed to say the S&P 500 or the Wilshire. Anyway, we still wonder why people get so excited about the Dow, when everyone know its measurements is bizarre and its components are somewhat arbitrary.

Dem. Pres. Primaries (Intrade)
As always, our election-morning check of the political markets. Today we've got the so-called Chesepeake Primaries, though apparently Potomac Primaries are more geographically meaningful. Whatever, we're not seeing much value here. Obama is priced for a big win in all three states, trading above $.90 in Virgina and Maryland, and there's not even any trading in DC... just can't make a market for it. The CW is that he'll win in these states pretty handily and the market reflects that without hesitation.

$$$ Seth Tobias Death Involved No Crime, Prosecutors Say [Bloomberg]

$$$ HOMG [WSJ]

$$$ HIV [WallStrip]