♦ Employers cut 240,000 jobs in October, bringing the year's total job losses to nearly 1.2 million. The unemployment rate is now 6.5%, up from from 6.1% in September. [CNNMoney]
♦ Why has the market been falling sharply in recent days? One reason is that hedge funds have been selling billions of their holdings to meet demands for cash from their investors and their lenders. [WSJ]
♦ Citigroup is reportedly planning another round of layoffs. [DB]
♦ Ken Griffin's Citadel says his fund lost about 22 percent last month. [NYP]
♦ The evidence is largely anecdotal, but it appears there's been an increase in suicides related to the financial crisis. [NYT]

♦ Better news from abroad today: global stocks rebounded overnight, with shares in Hong Kong climbing more than 14 percent. [CNNMoney]
♦ Goldman Sachs will name its new partners today; it's expected to be the smallest such group in the firm's history. [Telegraph, Clusterstock]
♦ The average hedge fund was down 8.4 percent in October. Layoffs in the industry are mounting: Glenn Dubin's Highbridge Capital is the latest fund to announce cuts, trimming 10 percent of the company's staff. [NYP]
♦ Barclays is seeking to raise $10 billion from Russian banks. [WSJ]
♦ Fidelity may lay off 4,000 employees. [Boston Globe]

Fidelity mutual fund managers sold around 1.1 million Google shares in February. Fidelity's Contrafund owned $3.63 billion worth of Google stock at the beginning of the month and, after selling about 170,000 shares, $2.95 billion at the end. After selling 1 million shares, the $38.4 billion Magellan fund saw its Google investment drop even more drastically — 42 percent — from $1.81 billion to $1.04 billion. SAI notes that some of that investment decline resulted in Google shares dropping 16.5 percent in February. Cold comfort, indeed.

The two largest shareholders in Take-Two Interactive dumped a huge percentage of their holdings according to SEC filings Monday. Oppenheimer Funds sold 8.4 million shares, roughly half its holdings, lowering its stake from 23 percent to 11.5 percent. Fidelity sold 7.5 million shares — almost its entire stake. It now owns 2.75 percent, down from 14.7 percent. It's telling that the big mutual funds are willing to cash out now for a few dollars below the $26 buyout price offered by EA. Oppenheimer and Fidelity's moneymen think the deal may fall apart — at least, they're not sticking around to find out. The other possibility? They think the deal IS going to happen and don't want their money stuck in Take Two stock for a year while the details are worked out. (Photo by AP/Paul Sakuma)

BusinessWeek columnist Sarah Lacy has more details on Slide's new funding round: Max Levchin's Web widget factory is now valued at $550 million, after raising funds from the likes of Fidelity Investments and T. Rowe Price. While the company is mum on IPO prospects, such big institutional investors typically come in during a so-called "mezzanine" round — a company's final private financing before a public stock offering.