Out Fox The $treet

Today Moody's downgraded MF Global (MF) to Baa3 putting them on the verge of junk status. Then, MF announced that it has upped the Q3 earnings report to tomorrow morning instead of Thursday. This all comes after last week MF had to increase capital after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) raised concern about exposure to European sovereign debt. All of this new has led the stock to a hit a fresh 52 week low of $3.48 today. All the way down from a 52 week high of $9.28 back in January. Considering financial like Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) have had huge bounces recently, it should be concerning to any investor that Wall Street knows something. Is this extreme fear warranted? Is $6.4B of exposure to Italy, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, and Ireland with a weighted maturity of October 2012 worthy of a drop from $7.5 at the start of August? Heck, Citigroup (C) stock is already above levels from mid-August with sights on the pre market collapse levels....

At least that's the goal that new CEO John Corzine has outlined for MF Global (MF). What exactly that entails it's probably much harder to grasp and understand. MF clearly wants to move into investment banking and money management sectors left dismantled by the financial regulations and credit crisis. It's also areas that Corzine and his new COO likely understand following their careers at Goldman Sachs (GS). Whether they can be successful pushing MF into these competitive areas seems up in the air. According to FT.com report and news from an investment conference last month, Corzine made the statement that MF hoped to double to 4,000 employees within a couple of years from an aggressive move into investment banking and money management. Now that's a very aggressive statement and very atypical in the financial sector these days where most institutions are expected to decrease in size. MF has the potential to skate under the radar and take share from bigger rivals tha...