Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- U.S. stocks rose as investors snapped up technology and commodity companies that are trading at their cheapest levels in at least 13 years and may benefit from unprecedented cuts in global interest rates. Qualcomm Inc., Apple Inc. and Monsanto Co. rallied more than 5 percent after the price-to-earnings ratios of technology and raw-material shares in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index declined to the lowest since Bloomberg began tracking the data in 1995. Bank of New York Mellon Corp. rallied 27 percent and Discover Financial Services jumped 7.5 percent after the Federal Reserve joined its European counterparts in reducing borrowing costs by half a percentage point.

- The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and four other central banks lowered interest rates in an unprecedented coordinated effort to ease the economic effects of the financial crisis.

- Republican presidential candidate John McCain is proposing the government divert some money set aside for buying mortgage securities and instead purchase home loans. The plan would help homeowners in danger of foreclosure refinance into more affordable mortgages and wouldn't require approval of the loan holder, McCain senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said on a conference call today.

Wall Street Journal:

- One day after J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.(JPM) demanded $5 billion in collateral from a teetering Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. last month, the big bank made the same demand from Merrill Lynch & Co.

NY Times:
- NYC Schools Test Microsoft(MSFT) Science, Math Video Games.

Google Blogscoped:

- Google(GOOG) released AdSense for Games aka Google In-Game Advertising. This is a way for AdSense ads in text, image or video format to be integrated into web-based Flash games.

Rocky Mountain News:

- It's as if the Denver-area housing market has gone back in time. The number of unsold homes on the market in September dropped to the lowest level since December 2005 and the number of homes placed under contract jumped almost 22 percent from September 2007, the best September for sales in three years.

Reuters:
- OPEC may need to intervene to balance the oil market if prices fall further, Nigeria said on Wednesday, making it the latest country in the exporters' group to float the prospect of supply curbs.

- The credit crisis is providing a rare chance for investors with sufficient cash to get into previously inaccessible hedge funds, according to Swiss-based Partners Group's head of fund manager selection Roberto Cagnati.

Kommersant:
- Russian banks started raising mortgage rates as the global financial crisis worsens. Moscow-based Alfa Bank plans to increase its average annual ruble mortgage rate to more than 20%, and its average annual dollar rate above 16.5%. The current rates are 15.5% for mortgage loans in rubles and 12.5% in dollars. Many Russian banks have stopped giving out mortgage loans.recast to "

Financial Post:

- The credit crisis is spilling over into the grain industry as international buyers find themselves unable to come up with payment, forcing sellers to shoulder often substantial losses.