Wachovia announced today that they are no longer offering the pick-a-pay, negative amortization mortgage loan. Additionally, they’ve announced that the bank will assist current pick-a-pay loan holders by waiving all pre-payment penalty fees for those looking to refinance out of the loan.
Here’s the details:

American Express announced intra-quarter guidance today saying that the company would be impacted by worse-than-expected credit conditions.  They expect their business to be impacted as economic activity slows and consumer late-pays and credit defaults on AMEX cards continue to mount.
From the Market Watch story:

Maybe the politicians think that with everyone getting ready for 4th or July that the news of a sleight-of-hand bailout bill won’t raise too many eyebrows.  Maybe they’re wrong (again).  With the holiday fast approaching legislators in both the House and Senate are getting ready to put through the mother of all mortgage bail out bills in an attempt to stave off the further decimation of the housing market.

Citigroup may be near another round of layoffs this week as it attempts to reach its goal of 6,000 layoffs in response to the deteriorating credit markets.  The company has already laid off approximately half that number, and sources inside the company say more are on the way.
This shouldn’t really surprise anyone.  Citi has been one of the hardest hit by bad mortgage bets and has done nearly everything in its power to stay afloat - including taking on large sums of capital from soveriegn wealth funds.
From Bloomberg:

UCLA’s Anderson school of business reported that they see the first ‘dim flicker’ of light at the end of the housing collapse in California, citing year-over-year transaction increases in areas like Riverside (one of the hardest hit by the bubble).  To me this just smacks of analysts wanting to be the first to call bottom without consideration to the underlying fundamentals of the California market.