what is another 6-6.5 billion

According to CNBC, Merrill Lynch is likely to post a first-quarter loss on further writedowns of between $6 billion and $6.5 billion, according to senior executives at the company.

Unlike earlier writedowns at Merrill (NYSE: mer) and other Wall Street investment banks, the latest round of write downs are not solely tied to subprime loans, but instead are linked to commercial real-estate debt exposure and other types of loans, these people said.

Bond prices down

Bernanke told the Joint Economic Committee of Congress last week that the Fed's actions ``will help to promote growth over time and to mitigate the risks to economic activity.''

The bond market is looking much like it did in December, when yields rose as much as 0.27 percentage point to 3.91 percent on average. The increase followed the Fed's Dec. 11 decision to cut its target for overnight loans between banks to 4.25 percent.

The slump in Treasuries since the bailout of Bear Stearns was interrupted on April 4 after the Labor Department said company payrolls contracted by the most in five years during March. At the same time, wages grew at the slowest pace since 2005, bolstering speculation that inflation will decline as Bernanke said it would.

The April 4 rally wasn't enough to keep Treasuries from declining last week. Two-year note yields climbed 17 basis points to 1.81 percent, and are up from 1.24 percent on March 17, the lowest since July 2003.

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