• The Treasury is expected to announce in the next few days that it will be extending bailout funds to a handful of life insurance companies. [WSJ]
• Brian Moynihan, who took over Merrill Lynch after John Thain was ousted, is emerging as a potential successor to Bank of America chief Ken Lewis. [WSJ]
• Not that Lewis necessarily needs to be replaced, at least according to Meredith Whitney, who (bizarrely) says Lewis has "done a great job." [BN]
• Blackstone, KKR, and Carlyle are in the running to acquire the mobile phone operations that Verizon Wireless is selling now that it's acquired Alltel. [BN]
• Looks like Jim Cramer has a new enemy. Nouriel Roubini is calling the CNBC star "a buffoon," and Cramer has since responded in kind, of course. [NYP]

• Yesterday GM was making headlines for its snazzy new golf cart. Today it's back to the usual: the company is supposedly speeding up preparations for a possible bankruptcy filing. [BN]
• U.S. securities regulators will meet today to consider reinstating the "uptick rule" that permits short sales. [Reuters]
• Just 50 IPOs came to market during the first quarter of 2009. [DB]
• Those "stress tests" on banks? They're a sham and don't work, according to a number of people who ought to know. [NYP]
• Hedge funds rose an average of 1.8 percent in March. [DB]
• New Citigroup chair Dick Parsons says he's sick and tired of bankers being "vilified" in the press. So stop it, will ya? [Crains]