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Is Bruce Berkowitz toast?

Probably not. But that's not stopping the rumor mill from spinning full speed about the investor and the future of the Fairholme fund.

FORTUNE -- The scuttlebutt among some investors at the annual Morningstar investment conference this week in Chicago is that Bruce Berkowitz is toast. All well-known managers go through rough times, especially value investors who buy stocks others hate. But when you're named fund manager of the decade by MORE

Bruce Berkowitz, BofA's flag-waving fan

July 4 is coming right up, which makes it the perfect time to honor heroic Americans such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ken Lewis.

You may not immediately associate Lewis, the monomaniacal former CEO of Bank of America (BAC), with love of country. But value investor Bruce Berkowitz – who runs BofA's 12th biggest shareholder, the Fairholme funds – begs to differ.

A bet that isn't paying off

BofA has many problems, MORE

How Wall Street kills financial reform rules

Wall Street banks are lining up against a derivatives regulation in the Dodd-Frank Act. Teaming up with Republicans, they may prove that procrastination ultimately prevails.

By Cyrus Sanati, contributor

FORTUNE -- Nearly a year after passage of the landmark Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, the battle over the future of financial regulation in the United States continues in the lobbies of Washington. Major provisions of the law, most notably those connected with MORE

Is the AIG selloff overdone?

Could it be time to start kicking the tires on AIG?

It hardly seems like an auspicious moment. Shares have lost half their value this year, including a 3% walloping Wednesday, making the New York-based insurer the worst-performing big stock in the market. The supposedly smart money is having second thoughts, and AIG's (AIG) accounting, never exactly a strong suit, is being questioned again in an unwelcome blast from the past.

Even MORE

Treasury's AIG tangle

Has Tim Geithner run out of bailout magic?

The government is on the verge of selling some AIG (AIG) shares for the first time since its 2008 rescue of the insurer. Offering papers filed Wednesday show taxpayers should reap some $6 billion from the sale, which will take Treasury's stake in AIG down to a piddling 77% from 92% now.

But the yearlong plunge in AIG's stock price (see right) means a happy ending MORE

How Bruce Berkowitz stumbled with AIG

The investor admitted he misjudged the government's intentions with the insurer. What does that mean for Berkowitz's giant stake?

FORTUNE -- With AIG stock cratering nearly 50% this year, all eyes have turned to investor Bruce Berkowitz, AIG's largest private shareholder. The 52-year-old fund manager looked especially smart last year while amassing 40 million shares of the insurance giant. Back then, AIG shares were skyrocketing and embarrassing hedge fund managers like Steve Eisman MORE

AIG, Hank Greenberg and the omnipotent CEO myth

Fatal Risk: A Cautionary Tale of AIG's Corporate Suicide, by Roddy Boyd

If you want to know how AIG (AIG) became the time bomb that nearly torched the financial system, "Fatal Risk" is a good place to start – despite the author's evident admiration for Hank Greenberg, the former AIG chief who is in my view one of the unsung villains of the financial crisis.

Boyd, a former reporter at the New MORE

The Fed's bubblicious AIG turnaround

If the party goes on long enough, bubbly debt markets can make even toxic housing assets look tasty.

That explains why the AIG (AIG) bailout, long an albatross for Ben Bernanke & Co., is on the verge of producing an actual cash-on-the-barrel profit for the Fed – while lighting up dollar signs in the eyes of Wall Street.

AIG offered this month to buy back a portfolio of troubled mortgage bonds. Reports MORE

Staving off a fiscal crisis in Japan

Credit ratings agencies play a significant role in whether or not a company -- or a country -- falls into fiscal catastrophe. For now, they're all leaving Japan alone.

The three largest credit rating agencies have said that it's too early to decide whether the recent earthquake will lead to downgrades for Japanese sovereign debt. Fitch rates Japan AA, S&P AA-, and Moody's Aa2 and all three will remain unchanged for now.

The MORE

Inside Job director on Geithner, Goldman, and criminal bankers

Charles Ferguson elaborates on his famous Oscar speech.

by Adam Lashinsky, senior editor-at-large

Inside Job, which recently won the Academy Aware for best documentary film of 2010, continues to be a conversation starter. Paul Krugman titled his latest column in The New York Times, "Another Inside Job." Time Magazine's Joe Klein evokes director Charles Ferguson's now-famous acceptance speech at the Oscars in which the filmmaker lamented that so far no one MORE