Agricultural Bank of China Raises $7.3 Billion; Banks Applying to Repay TARP; Fiat CEO Confident About Opel Bid; World Bank Prez Sees Year-End Recovery; Derivatives Shrink to $592 Trillion; GE Reaches Debt Funding Goals for 2009; UAW & GM Still at Odds on Labor Agreement; Home Depot Beats Street

Should U.S. debt still garner a AAA? One agency shows first signs of downgrade… Alan Knuckman offers “the most important indicator” in today’s market… Chris Mayer’s pair trade “the financial crisis will not undo”… Obama’s latest intervention… how the government plans to fix the derivatives market… A tech industry Patrick Cox says “you want to own” right now

President-elect Barack Obama yesterday (Thursday) named Mary L. Schapiro – a strong proponent of protections for individual investors – to head the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission when his administration takes office next month, the biggest of three nominations with potential financial crisis implications.

Sometimes when you’re scouring the news, you see a statistic that renders you almost speechless. You can’t quite get your head around what it really means, you just know that it’s a knockout number.