Opening Bell: 4.17.08

Merrill Lynch posts steep first-quarter loss on write-downs (AP)
At first blush, Merrill's earnings don't look so good, though who knows how these things play out during the day. The company posted another wide loss -- $2.14 billion -- which was deeper than analysts estimated. Revenue also came in below expectations, which may be the real story here. Here's the actual release. While the headline gives the basic numbers, the subheadline trumpets: "Record Quarterly Net Revenues in Global Wealth Management." Well that's something. Another something: 4,000 jobs are expected to be cut, says the company in the report.

U.S. Proposes Auctioning Runway Slots to Curb Delays at La Guardia (NYT)

This is interesting: The US Department of Transportation, in hopes of finding some way to ease flight delays, is looking to trial a system of auctioning runway slots at La Guardia. We're not sure how well it would work, and it's just a modicum of the regulatory reform we'd like to see, but we like it. Why not go for it. If you can find some way to determine a market price for something that's not being priced on a market, then we're all for it. Of course, the response to the proposal has been laughably predictable. Governor Paterson called the proposal "woefully misguided", while saying it would end up costing consumers more (as we say, better to pay in money than in time). While the president of an industry group said: "It is truly mystifying, with the airline industry in a financial meltdown due to overwhelming fuel prices, that D.O.T. decides now is the time for a costly economics experiment at La Guardia.” Dumb.

SLM Has Loss as Student Loan Business Looks `Broken' (Bloomberg)

Another horrendous quarter from Sallie Mae, which remains unable to sell its portfolio of student loans. How come though. Do they really think the bright eyed college kids of America will one day turn out to be deadbeats. Well, they're probably right. At least everyone we know is.

Yahoo-Google Deal Advances (WSJ)

A week later, and Yahoo's search ad test with Google is going well... so well that the two are closer to signing a real deal, whereby Yahoo would outsource search ads to Google on some ongoing basis. It's not exactly clear how that would work, nor would such an agreement necessarily thwart Microsoft. Nor would this necessarily pass anti-trust muster. But the trial is due to an end in a week, but there'll probably be movement before then.