An upgrade from Morgan Stanley is expected to help out Lehman's stock price, which fell 11 percent yesterday amid talk of a firesale. [Reuters]
Merrill Lynch chief John Thain is getting ready to sell something. The only question seems to be whether it's the bank's stakes in Bloomberg LP or BlackRock. [NYP]
InBev isn't backing down on its bid for Anheuser-Busch. [Bloomberg]
Bank of America will pay $2.5 billion less for beleaguered home lender Countrywide than originally agreed. [Bloomberg]
Out-of-work Wall Streeters: Don't go asking SAC's Steve Cohen for a job. [WSJ]
Silicon Valley startups are raising money privately rather than through IPOs. Which is good because the there haven't been this few initial public offerings since 2003. [WSJ, Bloomberg]
Google now has the right to sell its 5% stake in AOL. [CNet]
