Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Shipping costs for iron ore and coal are at a record because of speculation by hedge funds and don’t reflect supply and demand, said Sempra Metals Ltd. There has been a breakdown in the “traditional correlation” between shipping delays at Newcastle, the world’s biggest coal harbor, and freight rates, John Kemp, a London-based analyst for Sempra said.
- Hedge funds fell 1.31% on average in August, the worst monthly performance since May 2006, led by declines in emerging markets and macro funds.
- Corporations in most industries have sufficient cash and access to funding to “ride out” current credit market constraints and repay debt due over the next 28 months, Fitch Ratings said.
- Investor concern about securities backed by some so-called Alt-A and jumbo US mortgages has eased from its highs late last month, according to data from Deutsche Bank AG.
- Billionaire Joseph Lewis, the British-born, Bahamas-based currency trader, paid $860.4 million for a 7% stake in Bear Stearns(BSC), making him the beleaguered brokerage firm’s largest shareholder.
- Intel Corp.(INTC), the world’s largest chipmaker, raised its quarterly sales forecast after taking customers from Advanced Micro Devices(AMD).

Wall Street Journal:
- Hunt Oil’s contract with Kurdish officials to drill for oil in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan may indicate that Western oil companies are now willing to bypass the central Iraqi government and deal with regional officials.
- Democratic presidential candidates tried to burnish their credibility with Latino voters in a debate yesterday evening that skewed heavily toward immigration policy, international relations in the Americas and universal health care for US residents.
- Inventors who have grown impatient with Yahoo Inc.(YHOO) may have to wait awhile longer to see any pop in its stock.
- Hedge fund managers expect market volatility to continue and competition for affluent investors to lead to more purchases of hedge fund firms, according to recent surveys.
- The US is planning to build a major base on the Iraqi border with Iran and a series of fortified checkpoints to halt what it says is a flow of weapons and explosives from Iran.
- US programs that reward companies for cutting electricity use are reporting good results.
- Antiwar advocates targeting the performance of Iraq’s government to justify demands for the withdrawal of US troops are “flawed” in their reasoning, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman wrote ahead of congressional testimony by General David Petraeus. Withdrawing troops will not “shock” Iraqi leaders into reconciliation, but rather reverse gains against al-Qaeda and sectarian violence in the country, they said.

Washington Post:
- Sixty percent of Americans said they think the US is safer than it was before Sept. 11, 2001, citing a new poll.

NY Post:
- NFL coaches’ salaries grew faster than those of CEOs and the league’s players over the past 10 years.

MySteel.com:
- China’s steel-product exports rose 84% to 45.1 million metric tons in the first eight months, from a year earlier, citing preliminary figures from the customs.

CNNMoney.com:
- Toys ‘R’ Us commits to more safety checks.

Financial Times Deutschland:
- The IMF has raised its forecast for global economic growth this year to 5.3% from 5.2%, citing people close to the IMF.