$$$ Citigroup Boys' Club Highlights Industry Gender Gap [AB] $$$ Bernie Madoff reveals that merger arbitrage is often insider trading and other secrets of the 1980s [CNBC] $$$ The National Futures Association is trying to figure out how to catch the next Peregrine Financial fraud by asking Peregrine Financial [WSJ] $$$ JPMorgan Said to Face Order to Tighten Money-Laundering Controls [Bloomberg] $$$ You can email Mark Zuckerberg for $100 [Mashable] $$$ Registration for the 5th annual Decathlon starts Tuesday, January 22! This year's competition takes place on July 28th, and also includes monthly “Throw Downs” where all registered Decathletes compete in 1-2 Decathlon events and collect charity bets on head-to-head match-ups (40 yard dash! Pull-ups! Bench press!). All proceeds benefit the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. $$$ A hedge fund is looking for a junior equities relationship manager in Manhattan [DBCC] $$$ FrontPoint veteran's Copia Capital liquidates all funds, readies rebirth [AR] $$$ Don’t worry about an Elliott vs Argentina precedent [Reuters / Felix Salmon] $$$ Why exchanges should be forced to use open source software [Jayanth Varma] $$$ Chicken Wing Prices Take Flight to Record High [Bloomberg] $$$ Dog teaches puppy how to go down stairs [Gawker]

$$$ Fed Is 'Playing a Game With Us:' Pimco's Gross [CNBC] $$$ Bundesbank steps up pressure on Draghi [FT] $$$ Broker departures accelerate at Merrill Lynch [Reuters] $$$ The head of credit trading at Credit Suisse has been fined £210,000 for disclosing confidential information about a forthcoming €2.5bn bond issue after inviting a UK fund manager to “play charades” and guess the identity of the issuer. Nicholas Kyprios encouraged a fund manager who had been invited by Credit Suisse to a roadshow in November 2009 for an unnamed company to guess the issuer, using phrases like “you’re getting warmer”, the Financial Services Authority said. [FT] $$$ How would you like to be a Fixed Income Business Management Analyst for BlackRock in New York? [DBCC] $$$ Goldman Hires a New P.R. Chief $$$ Euro Zone Split over Financial Transaction Tax [Der Spiegel] $$$ Fred Wilpon's lawyers have planned a whole range of distractions for their Madoff trial [WSJ, related] $$$ Robert Lacoursiere, the Paulson & Co. partner who oversaw the $23 billion hedge fund’s team of banking analysts, quit last week after four years to start his own fund, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. [Bloomberg] $$$ Manhattan madam's 'sidekick' turns herself in, released on $100K bail [NYP]

$$$ J.C. Penney Ousts Ron Johnson, Rehires Myron Ullman [WSJ] $$$ Capital markets: Is Citi the new golden child of Wall Street? [Euromoney] $$$ White Confirmed as SEC Chairman [WSJ] $$$ A.I.G. Seeks to Bar Greenberg From Suing U.S. on Its Behalf [DealBook] $$$ David Stockman's dystopia [Fortune] $$$ Wrestling’s Private Equity Champion [DealBook] $$$ Google Glass Already Being Banned from Strip Clubs [BetaBeat] $$$ The Fine Line Between Political Intelligence and Insider Trading [DealBook] $$$ Hedge Funds Wagering on Fannie Reincarnation [Bloomberg] $$$ As Deadline Looms, Few Companies Sign Up to Trade Swaps [WSJ] $$$ Costs of derivatives clearing stack up for buy-side [Reuters] $$$ Volcker: Central banks are too aggressive [CNN] $$$ Market Crash Likelihood Goes Up If Stocks Continue to Rally: Marc Faber [CNBC] $$$ Science proves women like men with bigger penises [NBC]

$$$ Fed Officials Weigh More Stimulus, Minutes Show [WSJ] $$$ Investors get lowest-ever Treasury yields [FT] $$$ Spain steps up austerity amid protests [FT] $$$ San Bernardino becomes third California city seeking bankruptcy [Reuters] $$$ Wall Street Recruiter Suing the City After Being Arrested for Giving Cops the Finger [NYO] $$$ Financier Leon Black Is Mystery Buyer of 'The Scream' [WSJ] $$$ Russell Investment Group is looking for a head of fixed income research in Seattle or London [DBCC] $$$ CME to Open Fund Set Up After MF Global for Peregrine Clients [Deal Journal] $$$ SEC approves database plan to audit stock trades [Reuters] $$$ Silvio Berlusconi set to run again to become Italian prime minister [Telegraph] $$$ Romney Says He’ll Release 2011 Tax Return When It’s Ready [Bloomberg] $$$ Crazy Clause in McDonald’s’ Olympics Sponsorship Deal Bans All Other Vendors From Selling French Fries to Attendees [Gawker]

$$$ Facebook Posts Loss, But Emphasizes Mobile Growth $$$ LightSquared Executives Get $6 Million in Bonuses Approved by Judge [Deal Journal] $$$ Bernanke QE3 Stocks Miss Greenspan Irrational Exuberance [Bloomberg] $$$ ‘I’m Quite Concerned About Fiscal Cliff’: Greenspan [CNBC] $$$ Argentina won't kneel down before 'vulture funds,' says Cabinet Chief [BA Herald] $$$ Gupta is no Rajaratnam. Gupta tipped inside information about one company to Rajaratnam, while Rajaratnam traded on confidential information collected from many sources. So you’d expect that Gupta would be treated differently when he appears for sentencing. Federal sentencing guidelines, however, suggest a prison term for him that’s similar in length to the 11 years Rajaratnam is serving. And prosecutors want a sentence within those guidelines, just as they want for the hundreds of defendants sentenced in federal courts nationwide every day. Because what Gupta and Rajaratnam did is so different, though, sentencing Gupta to anything like the time Rajaratnam is serving undermines the whole purpose of the sentencing scheme that prosecutors say they want to uphold. [Slate] $$$ For several years now, Marc Lasry, the co-founder of Avenue Capital, has decorated his mansion on East 74th Street with bloodied bodies hanging from the balcony, skeleton heads, a giant inflatable ghost, swinging bats and a life-size, clothed skeleton affixed to a tree on the sidewalk. One afternoon last week, tourists and children gathered to take pictures of a dancing skeleton beside the front door. It was singing “Super Freak.” (Perhaps in the spirit of competition, the hedge fund manager Philip A. Falcone and his wife, Lisa Maria, have lavishly decorated the exterior of their 27,525-square-foot house on East 67th Street even though it is currently a construction site.) [NYT via BI] $$$ Adveq, a leading asset manager investing in private equity and real asset funds globally, is looking for an investor relations and development representative for North America [DBCC] $$$ Former Soros CIO nears launch of Anderson Global Macro early next year [AR] $$$ Wall Street Is Rethinking Commodity-Trading Role [WSJ] $$$ This is a story about LBO companies getting equity financing from long-only investors to pay down debt to manageable levels before an IPO [Term Sheet] $$$ This is a story about a management consultant who is also a self-published poet [BBW] $$$ "My wife ... penetrated to the heart of the debate in a single sentence tonight when, only about 15 minutes into the exchange, she observed: 'Romney’s flag pin is much larger than Obama’s flag pin.'" [NR] $$$ Obama Takes Out Romney With Mid-Debate Drone Attack [The Onion] $$$ NYC-Based Soup Chain Offers Free Cup of Soup, Personal Service from a ‘Cunt’ Named Mary [Gawker]

$$$ Ben Bernanke is pretty sure the thing he's doing is not a horrible idea [FRB] $$$ Four Charged in U.K. Insider-Trading Probe [WSJ] $$$ Hedge Fund Jana Partners Takes Aim at Agrium [WSJ] $$$ In Goldman Programmer Case, a Way Around Double Jeopardy [DealBook] $$$ "The idea is that while equity owners - management - are like owners of call options on the assets of a firm (aka the Merton Model), banks are like down-and-out call option owners, because if their book equity goes down too far they will be forced into a fire-sale or liquidated by regulators. This is a barrier option, and has the interesting property that its vega - the derivative of the value of the equity with respect to asset volatility - is negative when it gets close in value to its barrier." [Falkenblog] $$$ Looking at cats on the internet makes you more productive at playing games on the internet [Wonkblog] $$$ Shia LaBeouf rescues sea lion [tv3.ie] $$$ Citi Capital Advisors is looking for a director of hedge funds risk management in New York [DBCC] $$$ DVA, one half of Dealbreaker will miss you [WSJ] $$$ LIBOR may converge with CD rates [Sober Look] $$$ Equity Trading and the Allocation of Market Data Revenue [FRB] $$$ "A Miami-bound American Airlines flight made an emergency landing at JFK when a row of passenger seats became unbolted and dangerously slid around like a carnival ride ..." [NYP] $$$ In urban Taiwan, indoor shrimp fishing is booming [LAT] $$$ "Queens teacher suing city claiming he was beaten up by a first-grader"; the pictures are superb [NYP]

$$$ Instead Of Doing His Job, Jeroen Dijsselbloem Has Given Us A Glimpse Of The Euro 'End Game' [BI] $$$ Paul Krugman thinks Cyprus should leave the Euro [NYT] $$$ RBS Split Not Ruled Out [WSJ] $$$ "Big Bank CEOs Must Rally Against Breakup Talk" [AB] $$$ "Texas, the Germany of America." [WaPo] $$$ Aspiring Model Scores State-Funded Boob Job After Convincing Doctor Her Flat Chest Was Causing Her ‘Emotional Distress’ [Gawker] $$$ Global pool of triple A status shrinks 60% [FT] $$$ Denmark Reviews Bail-In Law as ‘Terrorists’ Shape Banking [Bloomberg] $$$ Two Charged in Insider-Trading Case [WSJ] $$$ How the ‘London Whale’ trade could have been stopped [RWC&G] $$$ Ranking All 27 Seasons of The Real World [Vulture] $$$ Trump loses fight against wind farm [FT]

$$$ You can still drink big sodas [NYP] $$$ Bank compensation up in 2012 despite cutback efforts [Reuters] $$$ Morgan Stanley Set to Name Kaminsky Brokerage Vice Chair [FBN] $$$ Mary Schapiro Is Nominated to G.E. Board [DealBook] $$$ The life cycle of the investment banker [TED] $$$ City high-flier 'was called crazy Miss Cokehead by work bullies after she blew whistle on insider dealing' [DM] $$$ Brookfield Investment Management is looking for a global infrastructure securities analyst in Chicago [DBCC] $$$ Europe trading tax would kill repo market -industry official [Reuters] $$$ SAC Capital Manager’s Tipper Deserves Prison, U.S. Says [Bloomberg] $$$ "Long term shareholders are well served by activism" [Aswath Damodaran] $$$ "Callan hardly needs advice from me but I'll offer it anyway. She may want to consider that her lack of satisfaction with her life's direction is not a product of the choices she made. Instead, her choices may have been a product of her lack of satisfaction. In my experience, the kind of people who can rise to the level she did at a relatively early age tend to be filling a hole in their psyche, an indistinguishable yearning for something more that is experienced as a kind of pain." [NetNet / John Carney] $$$ Corey Robin went to school with Bill[y] Ackman [Corey Robin]