. >> under open market -- >> i'm phil lebeau. we have breaking news. september auto sales reported by ford, down just a smidge. 8.9%. all the automakers are expected to report weak september sales numbers as they come off cash for clunkers. again, ford down 8.9%. >> by the authorizations for open market operations and by the demand congress gave us to maximize employment. these are the only tools we have to achieve those objectives. i want to assure you that we have every means of exiting from the situation even if we do not sell these assets. >> you can do it in other ways. >> yes. >> hvcc. we passed a new policy. congress did. the ability of appraisers to appraise local units. the federal reserve, you went to a very lengthy process on regulating on appraisals recently. do you support the current policy because it seems to be having a very negative impact on homes in the industry today. >> we have policies that try to create adequate independence of the appraiser. >> your policies were good, but the direction went is my problem. >> could i answer that

phil lebeau has the details for us. good morning, phil.sad day for saturn. >> what does it mean for saturn? it's a rather sad day if you're a saturn fan. there are a lot of people out there who are fans of saturn. great brand loyalty. unfortunately for general motors and those saturn dealers, a deal could not be work out between general motors and penske auto group where they would buy about 350 dealers. their distribution network would become part of the pe inform ske automotive group. as a result, general motors has said we'll wind down this brand by the end of 2010. i have a feeling, alex, we've not seen the end of this. i would not be surprised if the saturn dealers do not try to force gm's hand by going to washington saying, uh-uh, you don't want to lose any more dealerships around the country. we also want to be getting september auto sales reported following cash for clunkers, the sales numbers will not be strong at all. we'll see declines between 5% and 40% depend og n the automaker. that's expected in the auto industry. what to fo

>> thanks, phil lebeau. that auto sector continues under pressure. meanwhile, he was the first to break the news of ken lewis' retirement from bank of america though charley gasparino says it may not be retirement. author of the upcoming book, "the sellout." yesterday you mentioned internal candidates to replace ken lewis. are they still in the running or are you looking at outsiders or what? >> we just reported on "power lunch" exclusively, i have more detail on it, is that they are still in the running, no doubt about it. from what i understand and this is what the board members are saying and what government officials are saying. remember, bank of america is still a t.a.r.p. bank. they still have, the government has say here. they don't believe that those six people are right for the job. remember, this is a huge job. this is one of the biggest banks in the world doing a lot of different things, not just commercial banking, running a huge brokerage firm, the old merrill lynches. those six people and there are three of the names right there. montag

cnbc's phil lebeau has the latest. phil. >> melissa, 1990. that is the year general motors announced the creation of the saturn brand. it was going to be a different kind of automotive company. no haggle pricing with dealers who were focused on customer service. and for four years it worked. but, well, now it's going to be wound down by general motors. the company announcing today ha it's going to wind down the business and the dealer agreements. they haven't set a time frame for how long the brand will stick around. but at some point they will bring it all down. and this is because the agreement the company was working on to sell saturn to penske automotive group -- and essentially you're talking about selling the saturn distribution network of about 400 dealerships, that fell apart when saturn could not secure a supplier for vehicles following the end of its agreement with general motors. in other words, penske was going to have gm continue to build saturn models for a period of time. at the end of that period it would have to come up with

let's go to phil lebeau. toyota? >> we have toyota's september sales, erin, and they are down 15.1%. in line with all the other major automakers reporting a decline following cash for clunkers in july and in august and again toyota down 16.1%. we're still waiting to find out and we should have it in the next hour or so what the sales rate was for the month of september. again, the expectation 9.3 million to 9.5 million. that's the latest on auto sales. we'll have more "street signs" in just a little bit. >>> welcome back to "street signs." rick santelli on the floor of the cme group. it's a really fascinating day. i'll tell you why it's fascinating to me, because i see all of this jese upgrades on wh tomorrow's job number may look like from the vantage point of different analysts and different brokerages, and then i see the activity that goes on before, during, and after these announcements. suffice it to say that there is probably the most activity in treasury options i have seen in a long, long time. having said th

. >> thank you, phil lebeau. >>> coming up, the faber report. >> and can a motorcycle be both exhilaratingnd eco friendly at the same time? we'll talk to an entrepreneur who is betting yes, mass producing the first electric motorcycle in the united states. as we head to break, take a look at the widely held stocks which may be in your portfolio. >>> welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber. just going through goldman sachs' call on the banks this morning. you know, i'd like to follow some of the research out there when it comes to the banks. certainly we've done that for the last two years. goldman has done a lot of decent work on that in terms of statistics and just things that they have available to look at. but it doesn't mean you necessarily should be following it the advice of any analysts when it comes to buying or selling. use it as yet another tool to help you make your own decisions. that being said this morning, goldman has gotten more positive on the big bainks, citing a number of things including primarily what hey see as an improvement in their earning power. ce