Merrill Adds $5.5 Billion to the Write Down Pile

Merrill Lynch announced today that it will take a write down charge of $5.5 billion related to the credit crunch. Stunningly $4.5 billion of the losses will be directly related to charges associated with the marking to market of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) currently held by the company. The remaining $1 billion is a result of fees and operating costs associated with prior company commitments.  From Market Watch: "Despite solid underlying performances in most of our businesses in the third quarter, the impact of this difficult market was much more severe in certain of our FICC [fixed income, currencies & commodities] businesses than we expected earlier in the quarter," said Stan O'Neal, chairman and chief executive, in a statement. "While market conditions were