Consumer Confidence Drops, Merrill Lynch Suspends Trader

(MoneyWatch)  A rundown of today's financial sector news:

• The Conference Board released its Consumer Confidence Index for May, which is down to 57.2 from April's 62.8. The downward trend corroborates the decline in consumer sentiment reported by the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer survey released earlier this month. This is bad news for credit card companies, which is bad news for banks, says SeekingAlpha.
• Merill Lynch suspended a trader for overstating the value of the firm's holdings by about $19.8 million in April. Credit Suisse and Societe Generale now have some competition for most dubious trader of 2008.
• Dubai-based private equity firm Ithmar Capital will raise $1 billion for the launch of its biggest fund yet.
• Dealbreaker provided a cheat-sheet for the Wall Street Journal's lengthy Bear Sterns post-mortem.