• Stocks dropped at the opening bell this morning following the Commerce Department's report that retail sales fell 1.1 percent last month. [WSJ]
• The SEC is looking into whether Bank of America broke the law by not telling shareholders about Merrill Lynch's plan to pay out billions in bonuses. [FT]
• President Obama is expected to tap Fannie Mae chief Herb Allison to head up the government's $700 billion financial rescue program. [WSJ]
• From Dick Fuld to Tim Geithner, Steve Rattner to former AIG chief Bob Willumstad, the big guns of finance have a friend in Michael Bloomberg. [NYT]
• Lehman Brothers "is sitting on enough uranium cake to make a nuclear bomb as it waits for prices of the commodity to rebound." No, this is not a joke. [BN]

• More on Goldman Sachs's promise to pay back its TARP money and the "looming divide" that will quickly follow between banks like Goldman and "the many others that are too weak to go without government funds." [NYT]
• 953 Goldman execs (one in 30) made more than $1 million last year. [WSJ]
• UBS is cutting three percent of its staff in Asia. [Reuters]
• Ben Bernanke says there are signs that the "sharp decline" is slowing, which may indicate that the U.S. will soon be on the road to recovery. [BN]
• Fewer institutions are putting money into venture capital funds. [Bits]
• Emerging markets hedge funds had a banner month in March. [WSJ]
• Private equity big Tom Hicks is in danger of losing control of the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Stars since his Hicks Sports Group is in trouble. [DB]
• KKR, Warburg Pincus, Providence and Elevation Partners are backing the founders of Skype in an attempt to buy back their company from Ebay. [WSJ]