Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Amaranth Advisors LLC, a hedge-fund manager with $9.5 billion in assets, told investors its two main funds fell almost 50% this month because of a plunge in natural gas prices. Last month, MotherRock LP, a $400 million fund run by former NY Merc President Robert “Bo” Collins, went bust after natural-gas futures fell 68% from their Dec. 13 peak.
- Confidence among US homebuilders dropped again this month as sales slowed and profits dropped, according to a private survey released today.
- Ed Keon, chief investment strategist at Prudential Equity Group LLC forecasts the S&P 500 will rise to 1,600 in 2007, a 21% gain from current levels.
- Iran warned the UN Security Council that “hostile” actions prompted by the country’s nuclear work will trigger a reduction in cooperation with the UN.
- Shares of Freescale Semi(FSL) gained after the maker of mobile-phone chips, agreed to be bought for $17.6 billion by investors led by Blackstone Group LP in the biggest technology buyout ever.
- Aeneas Capital Management LP, the hedge fund company run by former SAC Capital Advisors LLC money manager Thomas Grossman, is under investigation by regulators in the US and Malaysia after bets on Malaysian stocks caused losses of about 60% in on of its funds.
- German investor confidence probably dropped to the lowest in more than five years in September as higher interest rates and a planned tax increase dimmed the outlook for economic growth, a survey of economists showed.

Wall Street Journal:
- RealNetworks(RNWK), a maker of Internet music and video software, will announce today an agreement with SanDisk(SNDK) to sell a digital music device that competes with Apple Computer’s(AAPL) iPod.
- DaimlerChrysler AG’s(DCX) “Dr. Z” advertising campaign in the US, which feature TV commercials starring Dieter Zetsche, the carmaker’s CEO, is failing to attract buyers and should be axed, according to advertising analysts.
- US credit card issuers including JPMorgan Chase(JPM) are giving customers more choice in the way they collect loyalty rewards.
- The US already has a form of temporary immigrant work permit in place using resident green cards that offers a model for the kind of program now being debated.
- Sageview Capital LLC, an investment company started by two former Kohlberg Kravis Roberts employees, will say today that it’s bought a stake in Guitar Center(GTRC).
- A degree from a top US college isn’t needed to succeed in business because becoming head of a company is often more the result of personal ambition than schooling.
- World leaders should support the International Compact for Iraq, an Iraqi plan to become financially independent within 5 years, Robert Kimmitt, US deputy Treasury secretary, wrote.

NY Times:
- Researchers at Intel Corp.(INTC) and the Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, have created a silicon-based chip that can produce laser beams.
- Research in Motion(RIMM), which became dominant in the handheld device market with its BlackBerry for business people, is introducing the Pear, a version for consumers.
- Twenty-five of about 31 tribes in Iraq’s strife-torn Anbar province have agreed to join forces and fight al-Qaeda loyalists and other foreign-born insurgents.

Washington Times:
- A top special operations policy maker at the US Dept. of Defense said he will step down in the coming months, a move Bush administration officials say resulted from the reorganization in Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s office.

NY Post:
- The first NYC school testing program revealed that almost 10% of teenage girls are infected with a sexually transmitted disease and many don’t know it.

Harvard Crimson:
- Alumni giving to Harvard College, the university’s undergraduate core, fell to a 17-year low in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

Newsweek:
- Royal Dutch Shell Plc CEO Van Der Veer said future oil prices will fall significantly because crude-oil inventories are normal and there’s no physical shortage. Multinational companies such as Shell are able to compete with state-owned energy businesses because they can use technology to get oil and gas from unconventional sources such as oil sands, oil shale and deepwater reserves.

Milliyet:
- Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer called for non-government run religious schools and courses to be abolished. Such schools, often run by congregations or sects, were using “dogma and false beliefs” to influence students.

al-Hayat:
- Iraq may increase crude oil exports by 200,000 barrels a day during the next two months.