Well now we know why Honda is cutting auto production so dramatically — the company’s U.S. auto-sales were down a massive 35% in December. The company’s SUV sales did even worse, sporting a 40% decline across-the-board.

Executive VP Dick Colliver showed boilerplate confidence in this statement:

“American Honda’s sales mirror the industry’s current condition. We believe Honda will be in a strong position when the market stabilizes.”

Care to venture a guess when that will be?

[Yahoo Finance] Honda auto sales tumble 35 percent in December

Medical device company Northstar Neuroscience has announced that the board will be selling off all assets and dissolving the company. The announcement sent Northstar’s stock soaring 37% to $1.76. You’ve got to love how much faith investors had in this company.

End of the ride sends NSTR upwards:

[FinViz] NSTR Stock
[Yahoo Finance] Northstar Neuroscience liquidating, dissolving co.

The high-falutin’ NY Times has sold its first-ever front page advertisement. In today’s paper, a full-color ad for CBS appears on the bottom of the paper. It isn’t much to look at, just a few stock photos and the ever-creepy CBS eye.

This move was a long time coming for the old gray lady, which has had to cut stock dividends, freeze wages, and mortgage its headquarters in order to deal with plummeting revenues.

Take a look at the remedy to their problems:

[Gawker] Times Finally Runs Display Advertising on Front Page

Struggling book an music retailer Borders Group has ousted CEO George Jones and replaced him with turnaround expert Ron Marshall. Also out at the company is CFO Ed Wilhelm who will be replaced by Mark Bierly.

The company has struggled to repay a $42 million dollar loan and its stock has taken a nosedive over the last year. The company also faces delisting from the New York Stock Exchange. Messers Marshall and Bierly will have their work cut out for them.

[Yahoo Finance] Borders Group says Jones out, Marshall in as CEO

Point-of-sale electronics company Hypercom has received a delisting warning from the New York Stock Exchange because its stock price has been below $1 for the last month. The company now has six months to bring its share price up or it will be booted from the stock exchange. Remarkably, Hypercom’s stock rose last Friday to $1.31. Must be New Year’s hangovers.

Here’s the grim slide of HYC:

“You know it has been a bad year when you’re arguing about what the five worst days have been…”

Payment solutions company VeriFone has announced that it will be two weeks late in filing its annual report to the SEC in order to calculate “the charge it needs to take for a falloff in its business.” Uh oh… The company is expecting to lose $5.00 per share — a much redder number than the 41 cents per share it lost last year.

[Yahoo Finance] VeriFone needs more time for annual report

The SEC has taken an emergency action to halt an alleged Ponzi scheme perpetuated by Creative Capital Consortium. The scheme reportedly took advantage of Haitian ex-pat investors who were bilked out of $23 million with promises of a 100% return on investment within 90 days. Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of returns like that?

The scheme was run by George L. Theodule who supposedly lost $18 million of investors’ money in trading. He raised this capital by promising clients sky-high returns, and by claiming to use profits to benefit Haitian causes and charities; in reality, Theodule funneled nearly $4 million to his personal and family accounts.

[Baltimore Biz Journal] SEC unveils alleged Haitian Ponzi scheme

It looks as though failed bank IndyMac, which was seized by the feds last July, may be sold off as early as tomorrow. A holding company has applied to the Office of Thrift Supervision to buy the assets of the bank for $14 billion. IndyMac is the only failed bank that the government has not been able to find a buyer for.

The company that has applied to purchase the bank is HoldCo LLC, which was formed by hedge-fund superstar John Paulson, “buyout investor” Christopher Flowers, and Dune Capital chairman Steve Mnuchin. This group might have had some credibility in 2006, but will they be able to hack it now?

[Biz Journal] Report: $14B IndyMac sale could come by Wednesday

The federal government will be investing $5 billion into auto-lender GMAC in order to stave off a possible bankruptcy of the company. Predictably, GMAC will now transform into a “bank holding company” along with every failed lender that needs to take money from Uncle Sam.

In addition to the money GMAC is receiving directly, General Motors, part-owner of GMAC, will receive $1 billion to help the lender’s transition into a bank.

Kirk Kerkorian, the billionaire investor who was briefly Ford’s largest shareholder, has sold his entire 6.5% stake in the company at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. Kerkorian’s investment firm had amassed 133.5 million shares in the automaker, but obviously put its traders on more overtime than a Ford factory worker in order to sell the huge position.

Estimates of the loss on the trade were between $475 million and $800 million. This is a terrible sign for Ford, which didn’t take any bailout money.

[Reuters] Kerkorian sells off Ford shares at deep loss

Kuwait’s parliament has decided to pull out of a $17.4 billion petrochemical joint-venture with Dow Chemical. Don’t ask us what a petrochemical joint venture is, but supposedly it’s going to cost the company $7.5 billion.

A Dow spokesman wiped tears from his eyes as he made this statement:

“[The company is] extremely disappointed with the decision by the Kuwait Government, and is in the process of evaluating its options pursuant to the Joint Venture Formation Agreement.”

Read: we’re going to lawyer-up and come after you like Saddam Hussein.

[CNN] Kuwait kills $17B Dow Chemical deal

Animal feed company AgFeed Industries has taken a nosedive today on the stock market because of news that the company will be shuttering its share buyback program and issuing 5 million shares to institutional investors in order to raise more money. The abrupt shift in policy cost the company 33% of its share price and market cap.

[Yahoo Finance] AgFeed Industries Stock

Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Brad Reback has published a report that says layoffs at Microsoft “would be a healthy move for the company.” His math calls for a 10% reduction, which would amount to 9,100 axed employees, and an approximate 10-cent gain in earnings-per-share. According to Reback, the move would be a “signal that profitability is more important than revenue growth during this very difficult time.”

A hiring freeze has been in place for some divisions since October, but this is the first call I’m aware of for heads to roll at the company. We’ll see what develops.

Ashford Hospitality, a hotel real estate trust, is laying off an undisclosed number of employees, axing its dividends, and implementing a salary freeze. The company was unreachable for details so it is not known how many employees will be cut, or how much scrilla the company hopes to save.

CEO Monty Bennett made this buzzword-saturated statement:

“We will continue to be proactive in all measures to best position the company for near term sustainability.”

[Yahoo Finance] Ashford Hospitality cuts jobs, halts dividend