It happened again! That same guy I mentioned in this column a week or so ago was on my bus last night, talking away for 45 non-stop minutes on his cell phone. Mark my words: When I'm President, my first order of business will be to lock up inconsiderate, oblivious fools like him and toss away the key.

Asian stocks got hammered as we slept. The Hang Seng was off more than 2%, and the Nikkei was off more then 4%. Meanwhile, Europe was in the red earlier this morning as well. Here in the US, we're currently trading slightly lower.

Here's what has my interest on this fine morning:

Alcoa (AA):
 Talk about a big ol’ kick in the can. The aluminum producer popped open it’s fourth quarter numbers last night after the bell and there wasn’t too much to cheer about.

Per the release: “Income from continuing operations for the fourth quarter 2008 showed a loss of $929 million, or $1.16 per share, which includes restructuring, impairment, and other special charges of $708 million or $0.88 per share.”

Not too swift given that the Street had been looking for a loss of $0.10. On the revenue side of the equation, it put up about $5.7 billion, which was well below the roughly $7 billion it turned in during the comparable period last year. That wasn’t too bad considering the estimates I’ve seen were for roughly $5 billion.

Not surprisingly, pricing issues took a heavy toll.

Point blank, I think the company can make a comeback and I’m not prepared to write them off. However, no - I’m not gutsy enough to bottom fish on the heels of this news. My concern is that the analyst community may not have too many nice things to say about the situation in the coming days, and if I’m right, that might have an impact. I’d also like to have a little more visibility before jumping off the ledge at this point.

Citigroup (C):
 Shares of the financial giant look like they’ve gone 3 rounds with Mike Tyson. They've taken a pretty hefty beating in recent sessions.

In any case there’s talk that Citi could sell a stake in its Smith Barney biz to Morgan Stanley (MS). I have no idea if such a deal will happen, or if it did, at what price. But as a person who's on the sidelines with this one, I intend to stay there. If you’d have asked me a few months back if I thought that offering up a portion of Smith Barney would even be a consideration, I’d have said no. I don’t see this as a good sign.