Most Read on Bloomberg: BofA Mortgage Showdown; Goldman’s Hires

The following list comprises the most-read Bloomberg News reports from the past week.

**Lists are based on daily statistics through yesterday, Oct. 22.

STORIES

1. Pimco, NY Fed Said to Seek BofA Mortgage Repurchases

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Pacific Investment Management Co., BlackRock Inc. and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are seeking to force Bank of America Corp. to repurchase soured mortgages packaged into $47 billion of bonds by its Countrywide Financial Corp. unit, people familiar with the matter said.

2. Goldman’s Cooper Says Money Not Enough to Join 2.2% Hired

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Edith Cooper remembers the questions, almost a decade ago, from a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. client. He interrupted her and a female colleague, then co-heads of Goldman’s commodities unit for Europe, as their meeting began.

3. Bank Bailout Returns 8.2% Beating Treasury Yields

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government’s bailout of financial firms through the Troubled Asset Relief Program provided taxpayers with higher returns than yields paid on 30- year Treasury bonds -- enough money to fund the Securities and Exchange Commission for the next two decades.

4. Citigroup Shares Rise as Pandit Sees Capital Return

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., 12 percent-owned by U.S. taxpayers, rose in New York trading after earnings beat analysts’ estimates and Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit said the bank may return capital to shareholders in 2012.

5. Stocks Fall on Mortgage Concern, Apple Forecast, Dollar

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Stocks slid, dragging U.S. benchmark indexes down from five-month highs, as concern grew that banks will have to buy back soured mortgages and Apple Inc.’s profit forecast missed analyst estimates. The dollar rallied and commodities retreated as China raised interest rates.

6. China Rate Move May Lure Capital, Complicating Policy

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- China’s decision to raise interest rates to combat inflation may have the opposite effect by luring more capital into the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

7. Treasuries, Stocks Rise on Fed Speculation, Citigroup Profit

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Treasuries rebounded from the biggest weekly loss this year and U.S. equities rallied as a drop in industrial production bolstered speculation that the Federal Reserve will buy more securities. Financial shares led stocks higher as Citigroup Inc.’s earnings topped estimates.

8. BofA Posts $7.3 Billion Loss on New U.S. Rules

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. lender, reported a $7.3 billion loss tied to new rules on consumer accounts and credit cards and said it’s fighting demands to buy back allegedly faulty loans.

9. Morgan Stanley Posts Loss on Trading, Revel Writedown

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley, owner of the world’s largest brokerage, reported an unexpected third-quarter loss after its worst trading quarter since 2008 and a $229 million writedown on a New Jersey casino project.

10. Goldman Cuts Compensation Pool to $370,706 per Employee

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. set aside $13.1 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of the year, down 21 percent from a year earlier, as revenue fell 14 percent.

COLUMNS

1. Proprietary Trader Wanted for Promising Career: Matthew Lynn

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- These are dark days if you work in proprietary trading. For the past five years, you have been the king of financial markets, raking in bonuses and enjoying the prestige that comes from making most of your bank’s profits.

2. Five Beaten Down Stocks Now Look Like Bargains: John Dorfman

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- With the U.S. stock market rising in six of the past seven weeks, investors are starting to feel that 2010 isn’t so bad after all.

3. Clarence Thomas’s Wife Dialed the Wrong Number: Ann Woolner

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Virginia Thomas’s mistake wasn’t so much that she looked up someone from her husband’s past to heal lingering pain.

4. Hedge Funds Succumbing to Mutual Funds Mediocrity: Dave Pauly

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Hedge funds have had it.

5. Quantitative Easing Is Only Show in Town: David Blanchflower

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Central bankers would like to be able to get back to business as usual where they change the price of money rather than its quantity. That day seems a long way off on both sides of the Atlantic.

MULTIMEDIA

1. Rogers Says ‘Time to Wait’ on Gold, Prefers Rice, Silver

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, talks about his investment strategy for commodities and the outlook for the Chinese economy.

2. Audi’s R8 GT Sportscar Narrows Gap With BMW, Mercedes

Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Audi AG’s Josef Schlossmacher talks with Bloomberg’s Baden Campbell about the R8 GT, which may help the Volkswagen AG unit to boost the brand’s image and better compete on pricing with Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and DaimlerAG’s Mercedes-Benz.

3. Lingerie League Strikes Broadcast Deal With MTV Networks

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg’s Michele Steele reports on the Lingerie Football League and its partnership with Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks for broadcast rights.

4. Porsche Unveils ‘Totally Distinctive’ 911 Speedster

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Karl-Heinz Volz, a general manager at Porsche AG, talks about the new limited-production 911 Speedster. Production will be restricted to 356 cars priced at $275,000. He speaks with Bloomberg’s Baden Campbell at the Paris Motor Show.

5. Ritter Sees ‘Positive Surprises’ in Citigroup’s Results

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- David Ritter, an analyst at Argus Research, discusses Citigroup Inc.’s third-quarter earnings reported today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Audrey Barker in New York at Abarker3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe in Sydney at ptighe@bloomberg.net