Vanguard (Vanguard Group news) will launch a new ad campaign that will seek to transform its name into verb. Kind of like Google and Googling. Can this sort of thing be manufactured by media? I doubt the term will enter the lexicon in a meaningful way, but that doesn't mean it will not be effective as an ad campaign. Article

Back in June 16, 2008, Lehman Brothers published a detailed, and deceptive, financial appendix breaking down its balance sheet by various asset groups in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. As Forbes notes, the provenance of the spreadsheet was Merrill Lynch, but there's no explanation for why Merrill Lynch would originate it. Was it advising Lehman for a while? Article

Is this a bad sign? Speculation in zombie financial stocks seems to be rising. I'm not talking about Citigroup (NYSE: C) and AIG, though we've seen a run-up up in volume and price in both of those stocks. The real zombies are the likes of Washington Mutual and Lehman Brothers (Lehman Brothers news). Yes, they both still trade via the Pink Sheets.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit (Vikram Pandit news) made headlines when he predicted the bank would be able to earn $20 billion a year by 2012--which strikes many as requiring a whole lot of earnings growth in a short amount of time. For one thing, the company is still saddled with Citi Holdings (Citigroup news), the so-called bad bank (bad bank news), which isn't going to revive itself anytime soon.

We've been lamenting the iffy state of fund raising for hedge funds and private equity firms as of late (private equity news). For private equity firms anyway, the other side of the shop, the deal-making side, is facing more uncertainty as well. Earlier this year, the industry was downright giddy about the prospects for more exits and more deals. But it's not really happening. The IPO market has been disappointing, which has muted the once high-flying expectations.