Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• U.S. Economy: Payrolls Increase for First Time in Five Months. Employment in the U.S. rose in October for the first time in five months, a sign businesses may be starting to gain confidence in the prospects for a faster pace of growth. Payrolls climbed 151,000, exceeding all estimates in a Bloomberg News survey of economists and following a revised 41,000 drop the prior month that was smaller than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Private payrolls expanded the most since April, while the jobless rate held at 9.6 percent.
• Copper Rises to 28-Month High as Chilean Strike May Curb Output. Copper prices rose to a 28-month high after workers went on strike at a mine in Chile, the world’s largest producer of the metal. The walkout at Collahuasi, the world’s fourth-largest copper mine, started at 7 a.m. New York time after wage negotiations failed, said Jacqueline Cerda, a union official. Inventories of copper in warehouses monitored by the London Metal Exchange have declined 27 percent this year to the lowest level since October 2009.
• Cotton Rises to Record for Fourth Day as Demand in China Erodes Stockpiles. Cotton futures in New York rose to a record for the fourth straight day as concerns mounted that that global demand led by China, the world’s biggest user, will outstrip supplies and reduce inventories.
• Bernanke Will Fail in Bid to Use 'Poison as Cure,' Ex-Fund Head Burry Says. Michael Burry, the former hedge-fund manager who predicted the housing market’s plunge, said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is trying to use “poison as the cure” by pumping more cash into the economy to spur growth. The attempt to bolster growth is reminiscent of Alan Greenspan’s actions to revive the economy after 2001, Burry said in a telephone interview from Cupertino, California. The former Fed chairman helped create an unsustainable boom in U.S. property prices with his policies, leading to the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression, he said. Boosting the economy “was the point of inflating the housing bubble,” Burry said yesterday. “It was the intent that the house would become the ATM machine, and help us through those rough times, post-dot-com, -Enron, -WorldCom, -Iraq and - 9/11. That’s why I say they’re using the poison as the cure.” The Fed’s support for asset values isn’t helping the “real” economy, and is creating “dangerous signs of a potential free fall” in the dollar and will be unsustainable, he said in the interview. It’s also probably causing investors, including fixed-income buyers, to take too much risk, in a repeat of their behavior in the period before markets began to collapse in 2007, he said.
• Janus Overseas Turns to US with Emerging Markets 'Secret' Out. Brent Lynn has beaten 96 percent of rivals since taking over the Janus Overseas Fund in 2003, in part by investing in stocks from emerging markets such as India and Brazil. Now Lynn is finding attractive bets closer to home. Delta Air Lines Inc., Ford Motor Co. and Bank of America Corp. were top 10 holdings as of Sept. 30 at the $13 billion mutual fund, which more than doubled its weighting in U.S. stocks in the past three years while cutting emerging-market holdings by a third. “Some of the best investing opportunities may be in the developed markets of the United States and Europe,” Lynn said in a telephone interview from Denver, where Janus Capital Group Inc. is based.
• Bank of America(BAC), Citigroup(C) Said to Test Apple(AAPL) iPhone. Steve Jobs may soon bag a pair of the biggest U.S. banks as iPhone supporters. Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. are considering whether to let employees use the Apple Inc. phone as an alternative to Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry for corporate e-mail, said three people familiar with the plans. The banks are testing software for the iPhone that’s designed to make it secure enough for company messages, said the people, who didn’t want to be named because the plans aren’t public. The tests are the latest sign that RIM may be losing its tight grip on the corporate smartphone market. Companies are experimenting with alternatives, including the iPhone and devices that use Google Inc.’s Android software, as their workers adopt those smartphones for personal use. “People are delighted with their iPhones and Android phones and they want to use them for work,” said Roger Entner, head of telecom research at Nielsen Co. “The result is RIM now has real competition for corporate customers.”
• Fresh Market(TFM) Rallies 59% After $290 Million IPO. Fresh Market Inc., the Greensboro, North Carolina-based grocery chain, surged as much as 59 percent after raising $290 million in its initial public offering. The company climbed 51 percent to $33.15 as of 10:46 a.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading after earlier advancing to $35. Fresh Market sold 13.2 million shares for $22 each, after offering them at $18 to $20 apiece yesterday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and data compiled by Bloomberg.
• Pfizer(PFE) Pill Leads Race to Dominate $12 Billion Arthritis Market. Pfizer Inc., the world’s biggest drugmaker, leads a race against three rivals to sell the first new pill in a decade for rheumatoid arthritis, a joint disease treated by injected drugs with $12 billion in annual sales. The tablet, called tasocitinib, curbed inflammation and stopped the disease from worsening, Pfizer reported last week. Pfizer may edge out shots sold by Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, and Amgen Inc. if research to be presented Nov. 10 at the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta suggests its tablet is also a safe alternative.

Wall Street Journal:

• Euro Area Woes Edge Toward Spain, Italy. The carnage in Europe’s smaller bond markets is continuing Friday, and the risk is that bigger, stronger economies like Spain and Italy might get infected. It now costs roughly $246,000 annually to insure $10 million of Spanish debt for five years compared with $235,000 on Thursday, according to data provider Markit. Ireland’s insurance cost jumped gain, to a fifth consecutive record of $610,000, a leap of $28,000 from Thursday evening. And the premium that Spain and Italy would have to pay investors over Germany to borrow from the capital markets has also edged higher. More pressure on Italy and Spain -– Europe’s third- and fourth-biggest economies -– would signal a worsening of the region’s latest sovereign-debt flare-up. Spain’s central bank reported this morning that growth stalled in the third quarter, which won’t help matters in Madrid. Data provider Markit’s SovX Western Europe index, which tracks investor anxiety about sovereign default, jumped to a record Friday. There’s talk that Russia and Norway’s sovereign wealth funds are souring on Spanish and Irish government bonds. Investors may be a little worried about what will happen if one of Europe’s main “clearing” firms, LCH.Clearnet, hikes up the cost of trading Irish bonds next week, as has been mooted. Lastly, there’s this Sunday’s local elections in Greece. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has warned that he’ll call snap elections in December if his party doesn’t do well. One of the things connecting Greece, Ireland and Portugal during this latest credit flare-up has been fears of political turmoil. So, what’s next? Many analysts are saying the euro can’t possibly stay this resilient against the dollar given the raft of problems licking at its edge. “There is every chance that peripheral Europe weighs on the euro into year-end,” notes Chris Turner, an analyst at ING in London. If the euro does take a major hit, that will probably wake U.S. investors up to Europe’s problems again.
• House Speaker Pelosi to Run for Minority Leader. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will run for the post of minority leader in the new Congress, rather than bow to Democratic critics who want her to step down after the drubbing her party took in the midterm elections. "Our work is far from finished,'' Ms. Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues released Friday. It continued: "We have no intention of allowing our great achievements to be rolled back. It is my hope that we can work in a bipartisan way to create jobs and strengthen the middle class.
• Fed's Hoenig: Rates Must Go Up. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig will speak before real estate agents Friday as the housing market struggles to recover. His message: interest rates need to go up. He gave The Wall Street Journal a preview.
• U.S. Faces G-20 Opposition Over Fed Stimulus. The Federal Reserve's fresh round of bond purchasing to boost the U.S. economy will generate broad opposition at next week's summit of the Group of 20 leading world economies.

CNBC:

• After Months of Feuding, Obama Makes Overture to Business Group. President Obama is moving to cool down his war with the United States Chamber of Commerce, one of the most bitter political feuds of the last two years.
• Health Care Stocks Losing Appeal Due to Reform Law. Once considered a reliable haven for investors, the health care market endured a major shake-up this year, and the industry is still trying to pick up the pieces. The U.S. government passed healthcare reform measures that impose a wide array of fees and regulations on health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, medical device makers and the rest of the sector.
• Half of Americans Have Lost Faith in the Fed: Survey. This lack of confidence comes at a critical juncture for the Federal Reserve, which on Wednesday announced a bold but risky program to pump more money into the economy to support the U.S. recovery.

Business Insider:

• Amazing, Free TV Streamed to Your iPad or Computer - A Cord-Cutter's Dream.

New York Times:

• Once on Sleepy Beat, CFTC is Suddenly Busy. Long dismissed as a lackadaisical regulator, the commission is suddenly on the move. Indeed, it is busier than ever: It opened a record 419 investigations over the last year, into things as diverse as small-time Ponzi schemes and claims of market manipulation.

CBS News:

• Keith Olbermann Suspended Indefinitely From MSNBC for Democratic Political Donations. Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely without pay from MSNBC for making donations to three Democrats in violation of NBC's ethics policy. "I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night," Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC, said in a statement. "Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay." Olbermann, who does not hide his liberal views, has acknowledged donations of $2,400 each to Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway and Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords during this election cycle.

Reuters:

• Human Genome(HGSI) Pins Blockbuster Hopes on Lupus Drug. Biotech company Human Genome Sciences Inc stands on the verge of blockbuster success with a new drug for a debilitating disease that has frustrated researchers for decades.
• American Tower(AMT) Sees Mobile Data Use Driving Demand. Wireless-tower operator American Tower Corp, which raised the full-year revenue forecast for its main business, is betting on rising mobile data usage to boost tower demand and plans to expand in international markets.

Dow Jones:

• Brazil Central Bank President Criticizes US Fed Move. Brazil Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles on Thursday became that country's latest official to criticize the U.S. Federal Reserve Board's move to stimulate the U.S. economy by buying bonds from the market. The move has "negative consequences for other countries, which is the case for Brazil," Meirelles told reporters after a speech at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. "The quantitative easing creates excessive liquidity which overflows to countries like Brazil, and then we have to take measures to address that issue," he said. "It does create a problem.

Kathimerini:

• A Fitch Ratings Services team will arrive in Greece on Nov. 9 and Moody's Investors Service will send a delegation on Nov. 30 to assess the Greek economy.